A Darker Nightmare
by Pozsich
Summary: A dark mystery series packed with action and suspense. Warning: Fairly violent.
1. Chapter 1

A dark room, with a single patch of light from the moons light streaming in from the window situated between two bunk beds. The rest of the features were blanketed in shadows.

A perfect setting for catching humans unawares. Such were the thoughts of one figure, clothed entirely in black cloth save some scant amounts of leather padding, as it slowly swung the dorm door open and shut behind it with an imperceptible click. From there it looked between the four beds and their sleeping figures. That one, that was the girl the figure needed to kill.

Eyes narrowing in excitement, the mysterious person took a few long, leisurely, steps to bring itself next to the bunk bed. Here it paused and considered how best to kill her silently without leaving evidence. Normally, shoving down on the victims diaphragm and simultaneously crushing their windpipes was its favorite manner; the victims often never woke, and were unable to fight if they did, deprived of oxygen as they were. The only evidence would be the marks on the neck, untraceable to any individual.

The figure let out a small growl as it realized this wouldn't work here, however. The bed was suspended by ropes from the ceiling, a foolishly unstable arrangement. However, this time it had worked in the girls favor; The force the figure used in its preferred method would surely cause the ropes to snap.

Something rustled. The tall shadow did an instant 180 degree pivot on one heel, spreading its left leg to the side as it did so, ready to pounce if need be.

The other bunks bottom bed was empty, the covers appearing to have been hastily thrown aside.

The black clad figure froze, eyes scanning the room. This tense pause in movement was its undoing, as suddenly one of the other girls, a girl in a black nightdress, collided with its side.

Thrown off balance, the figure immediately tried to turn, to draw its knife from its sheath and slice her throat. But the girl saw its arm going for its waistband, and quickly shifted her weight to her left foot and sent a sharp kick with her right foot, feeling its left forearms bones crunch as her kick connected. The figure let out an obviously masculine gasp, but reacted too quickly for the girl to follow his next movements.

His left arm was badly broken, his hand jutting awkwardly out from where it should be, yet he swung it at the raven haired girls head with wild abandon. She was not, of course, expecting him to use his broken arm, otherwise she could have dodged it. It connected with her temple and she let out a sharp gasp as the right side of her head exploded with pain. Her amber eyes widened for a moment, fully opened, before fluttering to a near close. She did not, to his disappointment, collapse. But she did appear, to his delight, to be severely hurt and incapacitated for the moment. He glanced around the room, the other figures in bed stirring now from the sound of their struggle.

He looked back to the girl who had been fighting him. He now saw a pair of cat ears, blending well between the pitch dark of the room and her own dark hair, giving even to his eyes difficulty in seeing them. C_urse her, _he thought. _She's ruining everything. No, curse the contractor for not telling me this room has a faunus living in it. Only a fool tries to sneak around a faunus, no matter how skilled they are._

The assassin knew the safest thing for him to do would be to immediately escape. He also knew his best course to escape was out the window. But he also knew he couldn't let the faunus live. Not now that she knew he was a male faunus from his night vision, and also knew of his willingness to fight with broken body parts. The main advantage in his line of work was, after all, the element of surprise. He couldn't return to his target with someone nearby knowing _anything _about him. And he would rather die than give up on an assignment. Finally, he hoped that, if he could dispose of her quickly, he might still kill the target, as none of the others had woken up. Two of them having seemingly returned to peaceful slumber during the lull in noise.

Acting decisively, calm in the face of the mess his task had become, the man went to draw his dagger out with his right hand - but cursed, as it became stuck in his waistband. Rather than waste time to examine why, he instead tore off one of the many leather pads on his outfit, as they were attached only by a relatively thin string. He swiftly bound the leather loosely to his right hands knuckles, well aware that every second the girl was coming closer to returning to her senses. After a few heartbeats he stepped towards her, binding complete.

The assassin decided that with three well placed blows he would be able to stop the faunus from being able to breathe. He struck once at her throat, only to softly growl in anger as he felt that nothing was crushed. What type of girl was this tough? _She must be an aura user, _he realized. Shaking his frustration off, he proceeded with his planned attack, attacking as if he had metal knuckles on rather than a thin leather pad. He smiled with grim satisfaction as he felt her left set of ribs crunch under his blow. _Those should pierce her lung, _he thought. He followed up with another blow into her abdomen, this time at the base parting of her ribcages going up, hoping to damage her diaphragm so badly she couldn't breathe with either lung, punctured or not. Mentally remembering she had managed to summon enough aura to save her neck, he added a final blow, aiming it into the lower center of her stomach. He hoped it would burst some organs, maybe make her die of internal bleeding if she didn't suffocate.

Deeming his brutal assault sufficient, the man now turned to his original reason for entering the shadowy room, the girl with black hair ending in red near the end of its strands. Unfortunately for him, she was finally seemingly awake, starting to sit up and look around in the darkness. He was glad that the faunus girl had collapsed out of the moonlight, and the girl in the red nightdress hadn't seen him from where she sat in her bed. He had one last chance to attack with the element of surprise supporting him.

He lunged forward, his right hand going for the girls neck, his mangled left arm going to put as much pressure on her stomach as it could to knock the wind out of her. As his hand closed around her throat however, she finally became fully sober, realizing she was being attacked. Before she reacted though, but managed to push her back down, crushing her into the bed.

He wasn't blasted back physically, but mentally the silver eyed girls enormous surge of red aura threatened to overwhelm him. Trying to shut it out and continue, he was horrified to see he could no longer even hurt her, much less crush her windpipe.

_Do I continue? Do I retreat? I'm already so tired, and this girl is as strong as the last. She may be an even stronger aura user. Freaks, the both of them… I need to retreat before this one learns anything more about me._ Decision made, the mysterious man leaped back from the bed, then turned and jumped out of the window headfirst without ever seeming to lose momentum.

Ruby swung herself out of bed and leaped towards the door even as she heard the window shattering behind her. Groping about the wall in the darkness, she eventually found the light switch, immediately flipping it to the on position.

Turning around in the startlingly bright light, she immediately spotted Blake, sprawled out near the end of Weiss and Rubys bunk bed. Ruby cried out Blakes name as she dashed instantly to her side.

By this point Weiss was also sitting up, staring at Ruby and Blake with a confused expression. Yang had only rolled over at the lights, but was now starting to sit up as well, having heard her little sister shouting.

"Blake! Blake! Are you okay?! What happened?!" Ruby was desperately questioning Blake, terrified by the copious amounts of blood coming from around Blakes right temple where, unbeknownst to Ruby, the assassins left hand had collided with Blakes skull. She was, in fact, lucky her eye hadn't been caught by any of the mans flailing fingers.

Blake slowly opened her eyes, but they were fluttering, and her breaths were very short and pained sounding. "Ruby… Please… I need… medical…" With that, what little tension Blake had in her body left as she collapsed, completely unconscious.

Ruby looked up, relieved to see Weiss climbing out of bed. Yang jumped out of her own bed, and immediately ran to and stooped by Blakes other side, concern laced across her face as she saw how badly injured her partner was.

"Yang, go towards the East wing, I'll go the opposite way. We need to find help as quickly as possible." Saying these words as quickly as she could, Weiss departed at a sprinting pace, Yang also dashing out at a similar pace a moment later.

Ruby continued to hold Blake in her arms until help did arrive, several minutes later.

The right side of her head was on fire, and her throat burned horribly. In fact, almost her entire body seemed to be screaming in agony. Blake could feel herself laying face up on a flat cold surface, which seemed to be moving quickly. She could hear several people running around her, their breaths coming and going quickly as their feet rhythmically pumped on the ground, but the only voice she heard was the voice of her team captain.

Ruby kept repeating the same words in a plaintive, almost begging, voice.

"You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. Blake, please, you're going to be okay right?"

Blake felt her heart stir at the sound of Rubys almost crying voice, but couldn't bring her body to do anything. Everything hurt so badly, surely worse than any pain she had ever suffered before. Quickly, she found holding to consciousness was becoming more difficult. Blake slowly drifted away, her mind becoming encased in the shadows of dreams. The last thing she heard before entering the darkness was Ruby whispering in a strained voice.

"_You're going to be fine."_


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors note: This chapter doesn't have much violence, it's mostly set up for the story to come. Also, last time I had formatted it in word, but the site took it all out, so transitions between different people was pretty sloppy. This time around and going into the future that will be fixed, I promise!**

**Please follow if you enjoy it, and review whether you did or didn't like it with your thoughts!**

* * *

The assassin flipped over after crashing out of the window, putting his feet below him. He could see the ground rushing up at a terribly fast rate as he desperately tried to put all of his aura into his legs.

_You and I have never worked well together, dear aura of mine. But for the love of life itself I NEED you to protect me here!_

The assassin closed his unholy eyes to recite his holy prayers while concentrating all of his mental and spiritual power into making his unruly aura work. It partially worked, at least.

His right foot hit the ground a split second before the other, and a split second before his aura finally flowed into his legs. The result was most of the bones in his right foot were either pulverized or snapped in multiple places, while his aura reinforced shin bone was unharmed, as was the rest of him, including his other leg in its entirety.

Feeling the explosion of pain in his right foot, he collapsed for a moment. He did a mental damage assessment. His left arm was useless, and break wasn't clean. He could see his bones in two places in his arm. In his broken foot he could see one bone had snapped violently upwards, tearing a hole in the middle of his foot. Finally, he had multiple pieces of glass lodged in his torso, ruining the black cloth he had stretched over himself as the customary uniform for his line of work.

He could feel his energy was nigh completely drained away, so little left he was finding it difficult to think about where he needed to go. In his tired stupor all he thought was _I need to leave here_. With this simple goal he trudged through the grounds of Beacon for half an hour, limping to stay off his right foot as much as possible, his left arm dangling uselessly. He would appear a zombie to any who saw him from the windows, an assumption only helped by the steady trail of blood behind him. Eventually, near collapse and only driven by the instinct to avoid danger, he reached the edge of the Emerald Forest. More a wounded beast than a man, the stumbled deeper into the forest from tree to tree.

One fortnight. He would give himself one fortnight to heal. After that, he was going to kill the target, no matter what this time. He refused to be made light of by some teenage girls, no matter what academy they were in or how skilled they were with their auras. He would make them fear the Syndicate. Satisfied with this goal, he curled up in a hollow at the base of a tree, hidden partially behind some roots.

Pressed into the cold earth, he tried to dislodge the glass from his torso before passing out. He ultimately failed, slipping into shadow while still bleeding from multiple lodged pieces of glass, and where his own bone had broken his skin.

* * *

"Professor, you can't keep us from seeing her forever!" Yang was practically yelling at this point, only three whole minutes into the conversation with Professor Ozpin outside of Beacons Medical Wing. Weiss and Ruby both stood a little behind Yang, unsure of what to do.

Ruby stepped forward to put her hand on Yangs shoulder, saying in a placating tone "Yang, I'm sure he has good reasons not to let us see her yet. Can't you-"

Yang interrupted her "NO! It's been three days Ruby! THREE DAYS! Blake is my partner! What could I possibly say if she died without having seen me for_ days_ just because some stupid Professor wouldn't let me see her?!" She finished this with a furious glare at Ozpin, who merely sighed before sipping his drink.

"Miss Long, I believe I have told you before that your partner is not in danger of dying. She's tough as a faunus, and an aura user, and was quickly given medical help. She may take a while to recover, but," Ozpins stern expression softened slightly, "she is _not_ in danger of dying."

Turning around he beckoned for them to follow him into the medical wing. "For the last two days she has been unconscious, and I didn't dare letting you three in lest you wake her when she needed rest. At the moment, she has been awake for…" He glanced at a nearby clock "around three hours, since nine o' five this morning. Professor Goodwitch has been questioning her for this time in its entirety. Providing she is done, you may all see Blake today."

Yang looked to be torn between anger at having not been told this sooner, and joy at the news that they could see Blake, who was finally awake. Ruby laid her hand on Yangs shoulder again, giving her a reassuring smile when she turned to look at Ruby. This made Yang decide to feel more joy, smiling with relief as she hugged her sister for a moment before hurrying after Ozpin and Weiss, who had immediately followed.

When Ruby and Yang caught up, Weiss was talking with the Professor about Blakes treatment. "I understand that faunus are notoriously tough, Professor, but I still wish you had let me help some with her treatment."

Ruby spoke up, surprised, "Weiss I didn't know you had medical training!"

"I was taught a vast variety of things in my childhood. The Schnee family refuses to let their children be incompetent in any things." This was said in a cold tone. In a warmer tone, Weiss added "I would have been glad to be able to help a team mate… a friend, with my training."

With this, the four walked along in silence, Ozpin leading them to Blakes room.

* * *

"Well, miss Belladonna, I thank you for your full cooperation, and apologize if it felt redundant at times. It's just that this is the first time anything like this has happened at Beacon, and represent a major security concern." Professor Goodwitch got out of her chair at Blakes bedside, reaching towards her for a handshake as she did.

Taking the professors hand, Blake replied, her voice barely more than a whisper "Of course ma'am, I understand the necessity. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you more about the perpetrator."

"Nonsense, you silly girl, you've been through quite enough without worrying yourself over something like that. The situation is what it is, I can't blame you for the assassin being smart enough to cover himself up. Now then, professor Ozpin has just messaged me that he's on his way with your squad. I daresay you will want some time to talk with them." With these words, Goodwitch stepped out.

Blake settled back in her bed, trying to keep the skin on her torso from being tugged on by anything. There were two large incisions on her abdomen from where the doctors had opened her to stop find and stop internal bleeding.

Blake counted 86 beats on her heart monitor before she heard the sound of Ozpins party arriving. Moments later, Yang burst through the doors.

Yang momentarily froze upon seeing Blake hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV drip. The next moment she was by Blakes side, all cheer gone for her as she looked over her partner in concern.

"Ahem…" Weiss broke the silence first. "It is good to see you are doing well Blake. We were told there should be no lasting injuries?"

"No, there shouldn't be. Once my ribs are healed I should be ok." Blake decided to leave out that her lung and diaphragm also needed to heal, and that she had been on a respiration machine for the two days she had been unconscious. She was definitely not mentioning her new torso scars either. Some unpleasant details can be spared for the sakes of loved ones, after all.

Ruby broke into a grin upon hearing Blake speak, saying cheerfully "That's fantastic news! Right Yang?"

This broke Yang from the slight reverie she had been in, staring Blake over, trying to make Blake was fine, even though Yang knew her eyes couldn't find any new damage or reason to be relieved that she hadn't already been told. Shaking herself slightly, she lightly laid her hand on Blakes and simply said, with a smile, "I'm so happy you're okay."

Blake smiled back briefly, before returning to a downcast expression. She turned to Ruby and stated flatly "Ruby, you deserve to know, that man… No, that assassin, was after you."

Silence entered the room. Weiss and Yang both looked bewildered at this news. Ruby was looking at Blake with her huge silver eyes, but Blake couldn't tell what she was feeling. Finally, Ruby said, very softly "So… You got hurt protecting me? But… Why would anyone be after me?!" She blurted the last part out loudly. Blake thought she heard someone outside the doors stir at the outburst.

"I don't know. All I know is he was standing by your bunk bed, looking directly at you, before I attacked him. He was practically reeking of killing intent, I don't know how none of you could feel it." Blake shook her head as she said so.

Weiss cut in, saying "Blake, I feel terrible for the fact that none of us woke up when you were being attacked. Can you forgive us?"

Blake smiled again, more widely now, as she stated "It was my own fault for choosing to try to surprise attack him instead of waking you all up. I wouldn't hold it against you. Besides, he was being extraordinarily quiet, even I could barely hear him, and he ended up incapacitating me by surprise. I shouldn't have held off on waking you all."

With this silence reigned for several moments. Abruptly Yang asked "What did he look like, Blake?"

Surprised, Blake took a moment to respond "He was fairly tall, taller than any of us. He must have been a faunus to have been able to see as well as he could. I can't tell you much more, because he was covered head to toe in black cloth that he had practically wrapped onto him."

Yang was silent for a moment, digesting this information. "Did he have leather pads sewn over most of the areas of cloth covering joints? Slightly lighter than the cloth, but still black colored?"

Blake gaped at Yang, dumbfounded. "He did. How did you-"

"I don't know who he is, but I know who he works for. And I'm going to make sure nothing like this ever happens again, Blake." With that, Yang rose and turned to the door, barging out with the other three staring after her in shock.

Ignoring both professors Ozpin and Goodwitch, Yang immediately set off down the hall in a sprint. She didn't care about anything but the fact that she knew who had tried to have her little sister killed, she knew whose fault it was her partner was incapacitated in a hospital bed. Her feet beating the stone floor, her breaths coming in measured gulps, she only had one thought on her mind.

_They're going to pay for this._


	3. Chapter 3

Yang hadn't felt so furious in a long time. She didn't know what Juniors organization was hoping to gain by killing Ruby, but she didn't care in the least what their reasons may be.

In the past, Yang had always fought to incapacitate thugs. In her towering rage she felt that might change in the near future. Unfortunately for her vengeance plans, a certain red blur suddenly streaked in front of her, both of its hands going to grab her shoulders and slow her down.

"Yang stop stop stop stop STOOOOOP!" Ruby was backpedaling now, desperately pushing on Yangs shoulders to stop her from charging ahead. Yang realized she could never outrun Ruby, so she slowed quickly to a halt, breathing heavier than normal and realizing she had really been going all out. Looking behind her, she saw the long trail of red petals her sister had left in their wake.

Shaking her head, she turned back to Ruby. "Why are you stopping me?"

"Because you're acting like a fool." Weiss appeared out of nowhere, zipping up nearly as quickly as Ruby could run by using her glyphs. "Blake looked terrified when you rushed out like that. She's seriously injured from one fight with… whoever it is you seem to know. You act as if you're going to go straight to that assassins boss and deal with him and charge out without a second word. You're a dolt." Weiss declared the last words with a purposefully hurtful tone, trying to drill Yang into thinking.

It worked. Yang was dumbfounded. Until now, until Beacon, she had always just charged her problems head on. Doing the same now was bad? Thinking about it, she supposed it probably was. Letting out a breathy sigh, Yang asked "What do you want me to do, then?"

"Explain to us. Who it is that tried to kill Ruby, and injured Blake. What they would have wanted. And, maybe most importantly, how _you_ know." Weiss crossed her arms and looked at Yang with an air of pomp. Sometimes Yang hated her, no matter how right she was.

"Okay… Okay… Look. When Ruby was still at Signal and I hadn't been accepted into Beacon yet, I… Fought crime on the side." Silence fell as the white and red themed girls both stared at Yang, waiting for her to continue. Yang sighed. "Look, I know that this sounds ridiculous, but I wanted to do something, I felt like I was wasting so much time waiting for my acceptance into Beacon. Since I was hanging out in downtown Vale a lot anyway, I decided I would fight criminals in my spare time. Kill two birds with one stone, that sort of thing. So… I don't actually know a ton about the guy who attacked Blake, in fact I don't know anything about that specific assassin. But I know someone who can tell me about it."

Ruby cut in "Is it the information broker who runs that club you attacked a few nights before I ran into Torchwick?"

Yang nodded fervently, glad to finally get some form of reaction from the two. Their eyes, one pair silver, and one pair icy blue, made an oddly intimidating combination even though Yang knew they were her closest allies.

"So… what, you're planning on just going and beating some information broker? That _hardly_ seems like a sound strategy. First of all, how did you even know the assassin is from the same crime group as this broker? Secondly, what makes you think the broker knows anything about the plan to kill Ruby?" Weiss was always a sound thinker, thus she excelled in poking holes in Yangs plans. This time, however, Yang was ready with a rebuttal.

"Actually, I know the assassin is from the same crime group because I've fought one before… And that one, I beat into telling me who he worked for. Secondly, I know the broker knows, because he's the one of the best in the Vale. The organization that assassin is from is simply referred to as The Syndicate, they're a major crime group who have established a hierarchy over all the other criminals in the Vale. The chances of any information broker as competent as Junior, the one I know, being out of it are nil. He would have been terminated by now if he weren't at some place in their ladder."

"That still doesn't mean the broker knows for sure… But I acquiesce, it would seem our best course of action would be to meet this broker and see what he knows." Weiss taken a few steps in the direction of Vale city before Yang realized what she had said.

"Wait. We?"

"Of course you dolt." Weiss didn't break stride, hesitate, or look backwards as she said this.

Ruby began jogging to catch up to Weiss, calling over her shoulder "Sis, don't fall behind! I might need your help finding the club again!"

Yang shook herself a bit to break her surprise, then grinned to herself. _I love my team mates._ She broke into a run, not sprinting now but still striking a good pace, calling out "It'll take all day walking! You're the ones who need to try not to fall behind!"

* * *

"That's the place?"

Yang nodded to Weiss question. "Let me go in first, and let me do the talking. Last time I came here things didn't go so well between us."

"Specifically, she destroyed most of his bar, wasted his henchmen, and hurt his pride as much as she could!" Ruby sounded cheerful as ever, but sometimes she made comments that Yang found incredibly unnecessary. To demonstrate that why Yang wished Ruby hadn't spoken up, Weiss turned to her looking incredulous.

"You're planning on getting information for this person after you did _all that?! _This will never work, Yang!"

"Just follow my lead okay? Even if this isn't a good plan, it's still the best lead we have." Weiss couldn't find a way to refute Yang, so she simply sighed and followed as

the sisters began making their way across the street.

* * *

"Boss. That blondie is here again. Two friends this time. Should we let them in?"

"That so? Well she must have a reason, and I'd prefer she didn't destroy the building trying to get in." Junior took a swig from his drink before turning around and climbing off his bar stool. "Let 'em in."

The moment the clubs sliding steel doors opened Yang was marching through, waving cheerfully. "HEEEY! Long time no see Junior! How's it going?"

_Boisterous girl, isn't she? _Junior could feel his temper rising just seeing the girl who had so humiliated him on his own turf last time. But he knew he had to play it cool. He, Militia, and Melanie were all much stronger than last time the blondie had come, but she had friends this time. Worse, he didn't know if blondies friends were as strong as her - It would be a slaughter if they were.

"Let's draw a line blondie, and talk for a bit. You stay three meters away, be reasonable in our chat, and none of us has to get hurt today. You won't even lose any of your precious hair, sounds great huh?"

Ruby grabbed Yangs arm as she felt Yangs aura flare up with her temper. "Play along for a bit Yang."

Weiss nodded. "It would be better for us if this Junior doesn't tell his associates why we came or what we learned from him. The only chance of that is if we solve this diplomatically.

Yangs shoulders slumped. Her lovable team mates were so boring sometimes. "Hey, that's fine by me Junior, but how about we talk somewhere all your henchmen aren't listening in?" Upon seeing his face shift into an angry frown she added "You can bring those twins if you're afraid we're trying to ambush you, we just don't want everyone listening in, promise!"

Junior seemed to hesitate for a moment. Seeming to make up his mind about something, he nodded and gestured across the club. Following his gesture, the girls saw there was a small, discreet, staircase in one corner of the club, going down and away from the rest of the club. Yang still leading, they made their way over.

Upon reaching the top of the staircase, Yang paused a short distance from where Junior was waiting, one hand up. "You blondie, me, and the twins will go down. Your two friends will wait here with my henchmen. You've already shown once that you don't fear us, so humor me with my precautions." There was something about this situation Yang didn't like. She knew both she and her team mates could take care of themselves. She couldn't see any danger to agreeing. But something still felt wrong. Maybe she just hated the idea of bending over to his demands? That was probably it.

Yang nodded once. "Let's go then, none of us want to drag this situation out, I'm sure." With that remark Junior turned and went down the stairs, closely followed by the twins. Yang followed at a short distance, and the henchmen formed a body block behind her as she passed, determined to keep Weiss and Ruby out. _If only they knew how painful that assignment would be if Ruby and Weiss were determined. _Grinning at the thought, Yang felt a bit better as she descended the shadow enclosed staircase.

Upon reaching the bottom, Yang was surprised to see a long hallway stretching out before them. No, it was better described as a tunnel; completely gray stone, it was so long it would have to run under several warehouses above them. It was uncomfortably narrow, only maybe a meter wide, and the ceiling seemed to press in on them from its low stoop of barely less than two meters. More disturbingly, though, were the cells lining the walls. Plain prison cells, they had no amenities for human life. They were tiny, averaging one and a half meters back and barely one meter wide. The only thing she could see behind any of the bars were shackles closely tethered to the walls by chains. Thankfully they were all empty, every single one of them, but there were literally _hundreds_ of them. Yang was dumbfounded by the realization that she hadn't had a clue something like this existed. Some crime fighter she had been. As they walked down the seemingly ended passage, Yang idly wondered what the exact number of cells was, and how many other places like this the Syndicate may have.

Eventually, they reached a heavy oak door set in the left side of the wall. Though the cages continued to stretch on past the door, the next dozen meters on the left side was a smooth stone wall. _A randomly placed room in the middle of the jail? This is a very weird place._ Nonetheless, Yang didn't hesitate to follow them into the room. At Juniors gesture Yang swung the door shut behind her. The she heard the click of the doorknob echo in the hall outside. Turning into the room, she was unsurprised to find it as poorly lit as the passage, very little being in her sight except herself, the twins, and Junior himself.

"So, what do you want on this find day blondie?" Junior had settled himself in a rolling office chair behind a desk situated in the far corner of the room, legs kicked up onto the top of the empty desk. He also took the time to pull out the same red shades his henchmen wore and put them on, worried he wouldn't be able to keep a good poker face on if he didn't.

"Oh you know how it is Junior, one thing led to another and I found myself in need of some info. Luckily for you, I'm trying to keep the fact that I'm looking for this particular subject on the down low. Capiche?"

"So in other words, you and your friends leave without a fight if I tell you what it is you're looking for and don't tell anyone what it is you want to know?" Junior began mentally weighing his options.

"That's exactly right! I sure am glad you catch on so quickly. Now, if you would be so kind as to have the two creepy girls leave maybe we can talk in more detail?"

Melanie narrowed her eyes but didn't comment, instead waiting for Junior to reply. Eventually he took his feet off the desk, and propped his elbows up instead as he began to speak.

"Well this is very dependent on how likely it is that I'm going to get ratted on. First of all, did _anyone_ but my men see you entering?" Yang shook her head and Junior nodded. His face was unreadable, but Yang thought she felt the mood relax a tiny amount.

"I'll be frank blondie, there's bad blood between us. But I am willing to cooperate with your terms, provided you do two things for me. First, you don't get seen by anyone when you leave. Second, if anyone ever asks who your information source is, you're going to tell them it was one of my rivals. If you agree, you leave with the info you want along with the info of the guy I want you to blame."

Yang whistled. "You're one mean guy at heart, aren't you? Still, I couldn't care less about the fate of any of you criminal scum. If you want me to blame some other guy, that's an easy done deal."

Junior nodded, appearing happy, his mouth twitching from a barely repressed smile. "Militia, Melanie, go tell her two friends to leave. You, blondie. You have a tablet right? Good, message them to leave when the twins get there to throw them out." As he spoke he began rifling through a cabinet Yang hadn't seen in the gloom of the room. Eventually pulling out a file, he said "This is the info on the guy I want you to rat out. Come on, we'll talk about whatever it is you need while we walk to where you'll be leaving from."

Yang made to follow Junior out of the room, only glancing back once. _I need to come back here someday, that cabinet could be filled with info. _The door clicked shut, and she hurried after Junior down the passage, still walking away from the club. Glancing back, she could see the twins figures fading in the distance as the red and white pair hurried towards her own red and white dressed friends.

As soon as Yang had finished messaging Ruby from her tablet, she began questioning Junior.

"You're part of the Syndicate, and an info dealer, so I already know you know what I _need_ to know. Let's start specific though, in case you know the full extent of these plans. Why would the Syndicate want Ruby Rose dead?"

Glancing back at her, frowning, Junior said "Blondie you need to be careful with names. Don't just throw around names like "the Syndicate" or "Ruby Rose" so easily."

"Speaking of names, mine's Yang, try calling me it?"

"Whatever. At any rate, I don't know specifics. But if you know Ruby Rose, you need to be very careful about her. Rumors abounded in the syndicate some thirteen years ago about her, she's a syndicate experiment. She's supposedly already dead, deemed too dangerous, but if you know her… Then I need to dig deeper in that avenue. As for why they would want to kill her it could be any number of reasons."

They reached the end of the hall, which turned out to be another door. This one, however, was a solid metal door painted to blend seamlessly with the gray stone that made up the tunnel. As Junior opened the door, however, Yang grabbed his shoulder, causing him to spin out and jump backwards through the now open door, hands in a defensive position.

"EASY! I don't know why you're grabbing me but you'd best not again if you want this to end well!"

Yang backed off a bit, raising her hands, palms out, in a gesture of peace. "Sorry. But you're going way, way, WAY, too fast. What the _fuck do you mean,_ saying Ruby Rose is an… experiment?"

Junior slowly dropped his hands, his right going to straighten his tie. With a frown obviously on his face, he started. "Ruby Rose is, as I told you, an experiment. Now, the details were hard to find, but I can safely tell you that the goal was to-" There was the sound of metal extending. Yang ducked as quickly as she could, practically dropping onto her face in her haste to dodge where she had felt the strike was coming. Looking up, she almost immediately felt sick.

Where Juniors nose should be, there was instead a thin metal shaft protruding from his head. Much of the flesh on his face looked as if it had stretched towards the hole, and was torn in places. His mouth was hanging open slightly, the jaw muscles neither holding it closed nor letting it open any wider. Following the shaft to its end with her eyes, Yang saw it ended in an oddly barbed point that vaguely resembled a traditional spear point. That explained the stretchy flesh look.

A deep chuckle filled the passage from outside the door. "Junior, Junior Junior. You should have known better than that. Pawns exist to fill purposes, not to scheme their own advancements." With that, the metal shaft was ripped out of Juniors head with the disgusting sounds of ripping flesh and breaking bone as the barbs caught on more of his head.

Yang was already backpedaling away as Juniors corpse fell to the floor, still on all fours but desperately trying to get up without losing any of her retreats momentum.

Normally she was a confident fighter, but after enough experience people eventually could roughly guess at other peoples strength, and Yang was no exception. The person, no, the _thing_ in front of her was a monster.

Finally back on her feet, Yang fired her aura up and glanced for a split second behind her, desperately looking for an escape even though she knew their wasn't one. During that _split second,_ she felt her stomach area light on fire with pain. Looking back around, she barely registered that there was a black clothed foot crushing everything it had connected with in her abdomen before being flung to the side.

She slammed into the stone wall, hearing it crack behind her as her entire body slammed against it. She thought she felt something in her neck break as her head was violently whipped against the wall.

Yang fell to the ground. Conscious but barely, her limbs were splayed out from her and towards the middle of the passage. Her body lay directly at the intersection of the wall and floor.

She heard a shriek of fury. She looked up from the floor to see Militia attacking the monstrous man, he toying with her and allowing her enraged attack to continue to no avail.

_I have to get up… To help… If she dies… I don't stand a chance… He'll make sure that I'm finished… I have to…_

Upon trying to push herself up, however, she thought she could feel the contents of her torso sloshing around. She was so far beyond the point of pain that it didn't register, but she still felt that she was broken. Beyond repair? She couldn't tell.

All she could see were sparks now. She couldn't imagine what the sparks were from, she could barely think at all. She was fighting desperately to stay awake, to put aura into herself, to _move. _She was failing.

_Is this what Blake felt…? Is this what despair is…?_

She abruptly stopped trying to stay awake, her willpower completely taxed.

It was like falling off a cliff into a void.


	4. Chapter 4

**Authors note: I've received a few comments about the mystery being enjoyable, I'm glad you guys like the foreshadowing! As always please follow/review and PM me if you're ever confused as to why something works the way it does in my story.**

**Also, on formatting: From now on going forward the "breaks" will mainly be used to show who's POV it's from, as I use shifting 3****rd**** person limited POV. It will occasionally be used for large time gaps, and I'll try to make it clear when that is the case.**

* * *

Ruby could feel her stomach fluttering as she watched Yang descend the shadowy steps behind Junior and the twins, who seemed to be his closest, and strongest, subordinates. She knew Yang could take care of herself, but she could still feel a cold sense of foreboding gripping her heart. It felt like an iron cage was constricting her, its bars pressing her inward until there was no room left, and she could only be slowly, forcibly, folded up.

Ruby nearly jumped when Weiss laid a hand on her shoulder. Turning, Ruby saw Weiss looked concerned. "Are you okay? You don't look so good, Ruby." After glancing around for a moment, Weiss lead her to some seats by the wall a short distance away. Sitting Ruby down first, Weiss chose to sit directly beside her leader.

"You look a bit sick Ruby." This remark, which would have been cold not too long ago in their relationship, if made at all, was now undoubtedly concerned sounding. Ruby couldn't feel joy at this progression in her relationship with the unfriendly girl unfortunately, even though she normally would have been delighted by Weiss choosing to open up - no matter how small the allowance may be. Instead of expressing this however, Ruby simply attempted a smile and said "I just have a bad feeling is all. I'm sure it's no big deal."

Weiss didn't seem impressed with Ruby's half-baked smile nor her reassurances, but she leaned back in her chair, seeming content to leave Ruby alone. However, she surprised Ruby instead. "You know, you don't have to feel alone when you're in bad spirits." With this comment, she gently took hold of Ruby's left hand with her own right.

Stunned, Ruby simply turned to look into her teammate's icy blue eyes. She had never seen them as soft as they were right now. She eventually realized she was sitting there doing nothing, like a stunned fish, and gave the other girl's hand a squeeze in return. Ruby sat back in her chair and let out a pent up sigh she hadn't realized she had been holding.

The pair sat there, silently holding hands for as long as they could.

Of course, no good things last as long as we wish they could.

Ruby's mobile tablet gave a small buzz. Disconnecting her hand from Weiss's, she quickly pulled the device out from where it was stashed on her belt next to Crescent Rose. She saw it was a message from Yang and immediately opened it up.

"Twins heading back to you, leave with them. Will be leaving a different way. Meet me after, will tell you where. -Yang Xiao Long"

"Well, what does it say? Is it from Yang?" Weiss was craning her neck to get a clear look at the words on the small screen. Ruby quickly passed the tablet to Weiss while considering what could have happened. Why were the twins coming back without Junior? Why were they supposed to leave without Yang? Where was Yang going before she met back up with them? Ruby's head was spinning from the confusion the message had caused her.

"Well? Are you okay with this?" Weiss was looking at Ruby expectantly, having finished reading the message and, apparently, finished thinking about its implication.

Ruby gripped her knees tightly with her hands, the blood draining from her knuckles as she squeezed as hard as she could. She was trying not to shake, feeling worse than she had felt in a long time. _Why? Why am I acting like this? There's nothing wrong… Nothing at all._ Yet she couldn't convince herself it was true.

Letting out a shaky breath, she turned to face Weiss. "No. No, I'm not okay with this. But we don't have a choice. We have to trust Yang."

Weiss nodded. "She's a big girl, she can take care of herself." She added, softly, "And it's a good thing to trust your team."

Ruby nodded as well, relieved that Weiss agreed with her. Again, they sat back in their chairs to wait.

They didn't wait long this time, only a couple of minutes passing before one of the twins, the white dressed one, climbed up the staircase. Ruby and Weiss stood and quickly walked over to her.

"Where's your twin? We were told both of you would be coming." Ruby demanded immediately, and in a flinty tone. She was determined not to show that she was shivering on the inside, not to a potential enemy.

"She is… preoccupied at the moment. You two are to leave the club immediately." The girl spoke as if she were bored, crossing her arms and staring down her nose at the red and white pair.

Weiss spoke in the icy, yet haughty, tone Ruby had grown accustomed to hearing from her. "This isn't what we were told. For all we know your other twin is with Junior, trying to kill Yang at this very moment. Unless you're willing to -" Weiss was cut off as Ruby grabbed her arm, then, dropping her grip, stepped towards the twin.

Ruby wanted to say it herself, as the leader. "It looks like you're trying to trick us. If you can't prove you aren't, things might be about to get violent." Ruby tried to make her normally soft silver eyes harden, like Weiss was so good at doing with her own eyes. She had no idea if it worked, but the twin appeared slightly nervous.

"I don't have a way to prove anything… But that blondie beat all three of us last time, so what makes you think she would lose when I'm not even there?"

This gave the duo pause; it was a good point. But Ruby shook her head insistently, stating, "Even if that's true, we're not leaving without knowing our teammate is safe and the plan is going as we were informed _by her._" Weiss nodded approvingly.

* * *

Melanie sighed as she weighed the pair in front of her. She wasn't very good at guessing others' strength levels, but they were in a team with the blonde so they were probably as strong as her, or at least close to it. And it was two versus one plus henchmen. Melanie felt anger at Militia for insisting that she would stay behind to watch the blonde, to make sure she didn't hurt Junior. Militia was too attached to that man, and now Melanie was facing the penalty of her sister's attachment. That penalty was the realization that, if this duo of white and red girls tried to force their way by her, she didn't stand a chance of stopping them. She was missing the red half of her own duo, after all. The whole plan was falling apart.

_What's the best course of action?_ Melanie pondered for a few seconds before it hit her.

_The reason they were supposed to leave was to make it seem as if they were abandoning the blonde girl, but it doesn't actually matter if they follow me down and then we make it seem like all three of them disappeared. _Melanie nodded once to herself before speaking, her mind set.

"Follow me then, I'll lead you to where the blonde is supposed to leave." With that Melanie gestured at the henchmen to disperse from the stairs, and began walking down them. The duo followed her closely.

* * *

Weiss didn't like the fact that they were walking into the unknown, especially when it was clear that their adversaries weren't playing according to the rules. But Ruby followed the twin, and Weiss followed Ruby. She refused to even consider letting the younger girl walk into danger alone.

Weiss narrowed her eyes in disgust as she realized they were walking into a prison. The cramped conditions, the countless small, empty, cages, the one impossibly long tunnel. It all seemed foul to Weiss, who was much more accustomed to the grand halls of Beacon and her own home in the Schnee mansion. More importantly, though, she could feel that this place had been built with despair in mind. The feeling practically clawed at her being; there was not a single living thing suffering here, but the structure was built with so much determination to cause suffering that the dislikable feeling seemed to hang in the air like a mist. The feeling was made worse still by the scarce lighting; only one dim light every ten meters.

They were walking in single file, as the tunnel was _quite_ narrow; they would have to squeeze next to each other and walk awkwardly to walk side by side. Because of this, Weiss couldn't see Ruby's face, and hoped the younger girl wasn't being overly affected by the atmosphere. She had seemed very bothered in the club, though by what Weiss wasn't sure. Distasteful as the club was, it wasn't difficult to shrug it's atmosphere off for Weiss, who had years of training in making her composure difficult to break. This place had a much more real effect on her than the club had.

But she didn't say anything, instead simply walking behind Ruby further and further into the depraved structure.

After a few minutes of walking they passed the first section of wall that wasn't covered by cages; along the left side there was a heavy looking wooden door, and roughly a dozen meters of smooth stone wall. The white twin gestured at the door and said in her customary disinterested tone, "That's where your friend and Junior had their chat." She did not pause however, moving straight past the room without hesitation and continuing down the tunnel. Ruby and Weiss followed, Weiss only glancing back at the door once. For some reason she had a feeling that she was missing something important, but she couldn't place her finger on it, nor could she pause to examine the area. Instead she, too, walked past without breaking her stride.

* * *

Ruby felt dizzy. Two minute's walking had gone by since they passed the door, and she thought she might be sick. Not for the first time in her life, she felt glad no one could see her face. For the first time though, it was because she was afraid she was about to become puke-girl and she knew it probably showed on her face. She had never thought she would miss hiding her face because of shyness.

_Calm down. Calm down._ Ruby forced herself to take deep breaths, careful to do so quietly enough that her companions would be unable to hear her. _Keep a calm front in the face of danger._ It was a basic rule that anyone who lived through combat school knew, and even though she wasn't yet sure there was physical danger, Ruby was well aware that physical danger wasn't the only thing in the world which could cause harm to people. And since she didn't know _what_ was wrong with her, she could only focus on one thing. _Stay calm. Stay. Calm._

She was so busy reciting this to herself that she didn't notice when her guide stopped in front of her. Crashing into her, Ruby almost fell over backwards, but Weiss caught her by her shoulders and helped Ruby regain her balance. Not sure if she was angry at the twin for pausing without warning or concerned that she had angered the other girl, Ruby opened her mouth to speak, only to pause when she saw that the girl was standing stock still. Ruby leaned to the left to see around the white dressed girl, while the similarly white dressed girl behind Ruby leaned to the right, also trying to see around the people in front of her. What they saw made both of the girls gasp.

In the distance, still a long ways off but close enough for them to make out distinct figures. Two people were standing facing each other, the smaller one sending a furious barrage of attacks at the other. The larger one was catching or deflecting all of his opponent's attacks with his hands, not moving his feet at all nor trying to attack his smaller opponent.

Behind the figures, outside of an opened metal door, lay what was unmistakably a corpse. It lay in an awkward position, and even at this distance Ruby could tell it was covered in blood, and laying in a pool of the same liquid.

Laying in the tunnel, just inside the door, was another body. Its torso was in the corner but its limbs were haphazardly laying towards the middle of the passage, only a dozen centimeters from the furious fight happening next to it. Ruby couldn't say if it was dead from this distance, but what she _could_ tell for sure was that it had a great mane of blonde hair. _Yang._

Abruptly, the white twin shot forward. She deployed metal blades on her heels even as she ran, not seeming concerned with them striking the tunnel's floor. Ruby was about to follow when Weiss laid a hand on her arm.

Whirling, Ruby glared accusingly at her own white themed partner. "What?! We need to go! Just LOOK at Yang! She _needs_ our help!"

Weiss nodded. "I know, that's why I'm making you pause. I need you to protect me. I'm going to grab Yang, and get her away from the immediate fighting. After that I'm going to examine her." Weiss stared into Ruby's silver eyes for several seconds, willing her younger, red clad, partner to agree with her. Ruby looked away first.

Turning, she replied, "You won't need to worry about getting attacked. Just get Yang good distance away, and I promise to stop any of them from getting by me."

With that, both of the girls sped down the tunnel. They didn't overtake their former guide, as she had already joined the fight, working with her twin. Closer now, Ruby saw that the corpse was Junior. She shuddered a bit at the sight. She realized with horror that his head was completely mangled by _something_, and her feeling of sickness intensified.

She turned her attention to the fight. The large opponent was now clearly an assassin of the Syndicate; he was dressed in all black cloth, and had some leather padding on his joints. Exactly as Yang and Blake said the other one was dressed, with one exception. This man had thin black metal plates on the back of his hands, running over his wrists and halfway up his forearms. They seemed to be imitations of scales, made out of metal woven together and attached to the cloth covering his body. In addition, this assassin seemed much stronger than the one who had tried to kill Ruby. _Much_ stronger.

Weiss darted forward and grabbed Yang's arms, which were closest to her, and began unceremoniously dragging the unconscious girl away from the combatants. Ruby kept a close eye on the combatants until Weiss and Yang were a couple of meters away. As Yang passed, Ruby felt a spark of anger when she saw Yang's stomach. The area, once beautifully clear skin stretched over well toned muscle, now had a large black bruise going across it horizontally, slowly fading to purple, then to yellow, as it moved away from its center.

Shaking off her anger, she quickly began trying to focus her mind. She began unfolding her scythe, only to realize the passage was too small for her to even let it fully extend, much less fight with it extended. So she stopped it part-way, resulting in Crescent Rose's blade being significantly more curved towards Ruby's hand than normal, and the shaft being _much_ shorter. Ruby's precious weapon looked more like a sickle than a scythe, and she felt terrible for shaming it so. _Crescent Rose is a beautiful lady, this is so unfitting._ Still, Ruby needed something to fight with, and this was her only option. She didn't use her weapon as a rifle when trying to hold off someone who could close the distance to melee range easily and quickly; that was simple tactics. Melee weapons beat ranged weapons up close.

Weiss had now dragged Yang a sizable distance away, and was stooped over her, drawing glyphs here and there around them. Ruby was interested, but didn't forget her job as she turned back to watch the fighting she could still hear raging behind her.

She was immediately disconcerted by what she saw. The man was now fighting the two twins at once, and not seemingly paying attention to either of them. The white had darted around him, and was attacking from behind. In response to her leg attacks, his left leg was darting around in the air behind him, blocking all of her kicks no matter what she sent them. His right leg was securely planted on the ground, and he gave no signs that he was having trouble balancing. The red twin was still attacking him from his front. She was tiring, however, and attacking slower than she had been when Ruby's group had arrived.

Despite the fact that he was fighting two opponent at once, one of whom he couldn't even see without turning, he wasn't looking at either of them. He was staring at Ruby. And from the very narrow slit in his black bindings where she could barely see his eyes, Ruby thought she could tell his eyes had a gleam of interest in them. She shuddered, and hoped she was merely imagining it.

She was proven wrong in a moment however, as the man spoke. His voice was deep and resonant, and he spoke loudly enough that the sounds of his fighting the two girls were drowned out.

"Well well, Ruby Rose. You're not a person I ever expected to see again. Did the people who stole you not leave the Vale? After all that happened? How foolish." He finally stopped staring at the now confused Ruby, instead turning his head downwards to look at the girl in front of him.

"I will give you two five seconds to stop attacking. You were simply following Junior's orders, I have no reason to kill you."

Neither of the girls seemed to care. The red themed twin didn't stop trying to dig her claws into the large man, and the white themed twin, her face grim, seemed determined not to leave her sister.

The man sighed. A killing intent filled the passage.

"Goodbye, then."

Both of the girls abruptly jerked backwards, then fell to the ground as sprays of blood erupted from their chests. Ruby stared in horror, uncomprehending, as both girls began violently spasming on the ground, holding the left side of their chests.

The man now held two hearts, one in each of his hands. He had simply _plucked them out._ He had thrust his hand through their ribs, through their lungs, and pulled out the most vital organs of their bodies.

Ruby felt her knees go weak, all of her earlier feelings of sickness and foreboding surging forth and threatening to overwhelm her.

_I have to fight that? How can I possibly fight that? It's a monster. I couldn't even see his arms move and he TORE their hearts out!_

She was staring at the man. He dropped both of the hearts, letting them fall to the floor where they landed with sickening plopping noises.

He stared back at her. After several moments had passed, he whispered _"Do you even know… who you are?"_

Ruby gasped. The words seemed to reverberate through her skull, making her immediately move to clutch her head in pain… only to find that her head felt fine. In fact, _she_ felt fine. She didn't feel sick, and she didn't feel scared.

Ruby looked back up at the monstrous man. She felt like she could see clearly for the first time in her life. She felt like she was _awake_ for the first time in her life.

She held up Crescent Rose, its short shaft still supporting the wickedly long crescent shaped blade she loved.

_If you want to fight, I'll fight._


	5. Chapter 5

**IMPORTANT NOTES: I'm taking a lot of creative freedom with dust in this chapter. Reason: We don't have any idea how magic works in the RWBY universe. So what I decided is that, for my story, dust is used in magic, and that generally mages such as Goodwitch harness dust crystals as a source of energy, while powder dust is used for combustion. Thus anyone with the necessary skills and dust crystals can perform magic, and dust powder can also be used as a more inefficient source of energy to perform magic with. This is completely non-canon; it's just my way of explaining things.**

**Also, I swear I'm not a medical student. Don't sue me if something is wrong, though I painstakingly checked things as I wrote so everything should be fine.**

* * *

Weiss finished dragging Yang to safety and immediately began examining her teammate. Weiss chose to sit on both of her knees, feet propped up underneath her.

First she drew two white glyphs on either end of the large bruise on Yang's torso, then another floating above them and bridging them. She made two larger, less detailed glyphs over Yang's pelvis and chest cavity.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and let the glyphs become her sense of sight. This literally made it so she was only able to see what the glyphs were actively touching, but in return she gained complete knowledge of anything their lines passed through.

Slowly sinking the glyphs into Yang, she felt her stomach tighten as she realized how badly hurt Yang was. Weiss could only just barely feel her teammate's aura rising in faint pulses from her body, and what the glyphs were showing Weiss of her insides was… not pretty.

Several of her organs had ruptures in them, and not a single one her abdomen was unharmed, nor were many in her thorax, the shock-wave of the strike on her stomach seeming to have traveled. Thankfully her ribs had avoided any direct attacks, and none of them had broken off. This safely ruled out the need to extract a rib from an organ and re-attach it to the cage, which was something Weiss could _not_ do. Yang's lower body had also fortunately avoided any damage, as far as Weiss could tell from the less detailed glyph she had passed through Yang's pelvis.

Eyes still closed, Weiss began to draw more glyphs in the air. She drew a single red glyph which was roughly half a centimeter in diameter, and four minuscule pink glyphs. She then re-positioned the three white glyphs around Yang's right kidney, which had the largest split in it, so that she could completely grasp _everything_ about it, from its structure to its biological composition. Using this knowledge, she began using the tiny pink glyphs to "sew" the rip together. In lieu of connecting material, the small red glyph zipped along between them, searing the flesh closed, thus cauterizing the organ to stop its fluids from leaking into the rest of her body.

It was a messy, and potentially dangerous, makeshift procedure designed to keep Yang alive for as long as possible. It was also incredibly taxing on Weiss, who had to keep track of all the glyphs and keep them moving in swift movements while being precise as a pinpoint lest she risk damaging Yang further.

Despite the difficulty inherent in the task, and Weiss' awareness that she was depleting her stocks of ammunition, she did not relent. She moved steadily from organ to organ, sealing and cauterizing all the major wounds Yang had suffered. To Weiss it felt like it took an eternity.

When she was finally done sealing all of Yang's organs, she let out a heavy sigh, relieved she was done with that part. She let out another sigh, this one of weariness, as she knew she still wasn't finished.

Letting all of her glyphs go, Weiss drew a new glyph. This glyph was very large compared to the others, its diameter being exactly as long as Yang was tall; effectively it blanketed her. It was also extremely intricate, as Weiss spent nearly a full minute drawing and retracing it in her mind to make sure it was perfect. Yang's life hung on this working, and Weiss was _determined _to get it right.

"_Ruby, I think you have what it takes to be a good leader. Just know, that I am going to be the best team-mate you'll ever have!"_

Weiss had made a promise. She wasn't going to let Ruby down. Yang was more than just a team-mate to Weiss, she was the older sister of the girl Weiss had found herself caring about more all the time in the recent weeks. And for all of Yang's faults… Weiss liked her as well. The boisterous girl brought much excitement to her life that Weiss had never known before.

Taking a deep breath, Weiss passed the large blue glyph through Yang at a steady pace, taking a few seconds to completely pass through the girl's body. As it did, Yang's heart and breathing slowed as her muscles tightened slightly, and her blood flow gradually slowed to a halt.

Once, years before, a theory on how to submerge organisms into stasis had been proposed within the medical community. Although it had been shot down as an impossibility by some, and as a damnation by others, Weiss had studied it in secret. She had never liked her medical training, but when she had found the medical journals explaining the theories behind stasis she had felt fascinated by the theory and its implications. She had pursued this fascination until she was sure that she had made a completely working spell of stasis... at least in theory.

Now, releasing the glyph, Weiss lurched forwards, hand on her stomach, feeling like she might puke from the exertion she had put into not only making the glyph, but also in maintaining such a perfect energy flow between her dust _powder,_ a volatile source in and of itself, and the glyph, which had a fluctuating energy requirement necessary to support it as it had passed through Yang, proportionate to how much flesh it touched.

Staring at Yang, though, Weiss felt elation take flight in her chest like a bird soaring into the sky. She had never been so proud nor so happy over helping another person. She had successfully saved her team-mate. Yang was frozen, but not frozen. With the correct glyphs, Weiss would be able to unfreeze her at any point in time, and Yang would suffer no long-term consequences. Hell, she may even thank Weiss for saving her some ageing time.

Weiss, realizing she had been completely absorbed in her work, looked around to find Ruby, to see what had happened.

She looked just in time to see Ruby collapse.

* * *

Weiss safely working on Yang behind her, Ruby waited as the man began walking towards her, taking a long, lazy, step over the red twin's now still body. Taking short, measured, steps, planting each foot directly in front of the other, he oddly resembled a predator. His every movement was lithe and made with such ease it spoke of untold power. Yet Ruby was surprised to find that she couldn't feel fear. In fact, as her eyes swept over him, she felt confident. She couldn't beat him, but he wouldn't be able to touch her. More importantly, he wouldn't be able to touch Yang or Weiss.

The man's right hand flashed out towards Ruby, a deadly thrust that would crush her head if it connected. Without thinking, without even seeing, she moved Crescent Rose in an elegant clockwise spinning motion, striking the scale armor covered part of his wrist, causing his arm to divert down and to her right. As she did this she quickly sidestepped to her left, ensuring she wouldn't be hit by his arm after it went off course. She detected his left hand crossing under his right arm, palm up and fingers pointed towards her, but as it entered into a thrusting motion aimed at her neck Ruby quickly re-positioned her hands on Crescent Rose, right hand lower now, and flipped the shaft into a position where it would block his left hand, making it pause where it was. She then twisted her weapon so the blade was angled curving towards her. She immediately forced the blade downward with her left arm, sending the blade lancing in a curved path towards his right arm. She was satisfied when she felt it connect again, sending his arm flying backwards, striking his own shoulder.

He pressed his left arm forwards for a moment, trying to break through Crescent Rose's shaft with his left hand. _That won't work,_ Ruby smirked, _Crescent Rose isn't just lovely, she's even tougher than the titanium alloy I made her from, thanks to my aura infusion over the years._

The man seemed to silently agree, abruptly jumping backwards. Reaching over, he grabbed his right arm, which had a dislocated wrist, with his left. Angling his elbow at 90 degrees, palm down and forearm parallel to his body, he jerked on his right hand with his left. His wrist straightened, and he forced the joint back into place in midair, without any noise and without any support to push on.

_He may still be in the realm of humans, but he's pushing it. That toughness is absurd._ Ruby couldn't call him a monster, not when she could compete with him now, but she still didn't feel like she was his equal. She was only winning because she her goal was defense. That, and…

"So, are you curious, Ruby Rose?" The man spoke. His tone was demanding. He seemed to want her to speak.

But Ruby didn't feel the need to speak. She couldn't explain why, but she didn't have anything to ask him. She could ask what he had done to her to enhance her senses so much. She could ask why she had felt as if she were filled to the brim with energy ever since his words had resonated with her being. She could as why she was able to feel movements before she saw them happening; or before they even happened at all. Or, best of all, she could ask _why_ he had been able to do anything to her, or _what his question meant._ After all, Ruby felt sure of the fact that she knew herself; how could she possibly _not_ know herself?

Still, in spite of the fact that she had all these questions, Ruby didn't want to ask any of them. She was dead set on a single goal: She would not let the man pass her. Weiss and Yang would be safe behind her if she succeeded in this _one_ goal.

The man chuckled softly, his voice bouncing off the walls in an eerie manner. Ruby didn't twitch, her feet planted in a wide stance, left foot in front of the right, her body turned to the side. Her back was straight and her shoulders tall as she faced him, Crescent Rose positioned directly between them, firmly grasped in her hands. Her right hand was aligned with her right hip, held out from her body by a dozen centimeters, and near the end of the shortened shaft. Her left hand was closer to the blade, and held the scythe in place in front of her. All in all, she made herself very difficult to attack; she left none of herself unprotected, and her stance would be hard to throw off-balance from a head on attack. However, it would be dangerous to go to her sides lest the scythe turned and cleaved into her target.

Still, the man chuckled, slightly perplexing Ruby. He finally said "You have won today, Ruby Rose, because you are taking the coward's way out. Using that abominable ability we gave you, and setting your eyes only on standing your ground. You take all the risk of your… unique gift, and turn them off by setting a weak goal." The man's voice hardened, becoming accusing. "If you were a warrior deserving of what you have been granted you would make your parameters my death, and we would fight until the bloody end. But you are weak. Unworthy of what you have, and unworthy of respect." The man reached up with his left hand, and seized the cloth just below his eyes, pulling it downwards. His face became fully revealed.

He was not a remarkable man. He was extremely pale, with black stubble on his face. He looked oddly heroic, his jaw line strong and his chin jutting slightly forward. But it was his eyes that he wanted Ruby to see, and they were indeed what her own eyes were immediately drawn too.

They were pure gray. He didn't have cataracts, he simply didn't have most of what makes up the visible eye; he had neither irises nor pupils, and the whites of his eyes were tinged a gray color, giving the entirety of his eyes a slightly foggy look.

Ruby tightened her grip on her weapon, determined not to turn, not to react at all. She would hold her ground no matter what. His monologue had filled her with more questions that she didn't care about for the moment.

He raised his left hand and pointed at her, his index finger stretching out in an accusing manner. "You _don't even know._ You don't know who you are, or what you have. Take a look for yourself." He raised his right arm and began tugging on a single scale from the scale armor covering his left forearm. When he successfully tugged it free, he tossed it to Ruby, who deftly caught it in her left hand and immediately returned to holding her scythe.

The hulking assassin turned away from her and walked to the doorway. Upon reach it he turned back to Ruby, drawing a small steel canister from his waistband. He promptly clicked a release on it and it spiraled outwards into a long, thin, metal spear. Its end was like none Ruby had ever seen; it had seemingly randomly placed barbs all over it. If it weren't clearly solid metal, she would have guessed it was simply barbed wire wrapped around a spears head. She also realized, from the darkened, partially dried, blood coating it that it must be the weapon which had killed Junior.

He began pounding the steel haft into the ground running between the sides of the door. He didn't strike with much force, yet as if on cue cracks spread from where he stuck into the tunnel, snaking along the floor, up the walls, and over onto the ceiling. They weren't spreading extremely quickly, but they certainly weren't moving slowly.

The man grinned, revealing teeth which were unnaturally pointed, as if each tooth was a triangle that had been elongated to be longer than any human tooth. "I suggest you take a good look at yourself… and then you run, Ruby Rose." He swung the door shut.

Frowning, Ruby unclenched her grip, folding Crescent Rose up all the way and re-tucking it into her belt. She felt odd. Her head was buzzing, and she felt like she was about to pass out, but she didn't know why. Remembering what the man had said, she turned her left hand over and opened it, looking directly at the polished, reflective, scale of metal.

Her eyes were solid white.

True to her premonition, Ruby promptly fainted. She fell face first into the still cracking stone beneath her.

* * *

**So that was chapter five! Bit shorter than three and four, but I got super technical about the treatment and the fighting. I hope it was as easy for you guys to see the fight as it was for me, it was a bit of an experiment and I'm not sure how well the descriptions captured it.**

**IDK how plausible the treatment was, but, hey, magic.**

**Please review/follow if you liked, and as always PM me with questions.**


	6. Chapter 6

Weiss's heart plummeted as she watched Ruby collapse.

The man was gone, Ruby was unconscious, at least Weiss hoped merely unconscious, and there were cracks spreading throughout the stone.

Weiss was utterly confused as to what had happened. Her mind worked in slow motion through her fatigue as she tried to decide what to do.

_Clearly_ the tunnel wasn't safe, Weiss could see _that_. Which meant they needed to escape. How? Was she expected to carry _both_ of the sisters?

Still unsure of what to do, Weiss nonetheless stood up and walked on shaky legs to where Ruby lay. Turning her over, Weiss was relieved to find her partner was indeed merely unconscious, her eyes closed and breaths coming rhythmically and easily.

_So no danger to either of them dying at the moment. As long as…_ Looking at the cracks, Weiss realized she didn't have time to waste. She immediately began dragging Ruby down the passage towards Yang.

Once the sisters were lying side by side Weiss looked at them doubtfully. How could she do this? She could always choose to leave one, as she was sure she would be able to carry at least one of them out. But her heart didn't seriously consider this possibility; it had only recently begun to thaw but it had repeatedly surprised Weiss with how soft it was.

_Not to mention no matter which I took the other would hate me forever, and our team would be ruined._ Weiss sighed at the thought of Ruby's face upon hearing Yang had died. Weiss certainly _didn't_ want to see that.

Not to mention, Weiss had already put a lot of work into saving her blonde team-mate, so why should she give up now?

This in mind, she decided to divide her assets and try to carry both out at once. She chose to move Yang, the heavier of the two, with glyphs. She drew several large white glyphs in the air, then passed them through Yang. Lifting the glyphs back up, Yang now floated on them as if they were a bed.

She then stooped down to Ruby. Wrapping one arm under Ruby's knees and one around her shoulders, Weiss flared her aura and lifted Ruby. The Schnee heiress was carrying another girl like she were a princess. Weiss decided to search for irony in the situation later.

Her vision blurred slightly as she lifted Ruby. Not wasting time, she turned and immediately began running down the tunnel, the glyphs carrying Yang zipping along to keep up with their master.

Weiss was panting within a few seconds. She was still _very_ tired from her medical procedures. Her aura, which she had less of in reserve than either of the sisters she was carrying, was flickering badly as the only thing keeping it active was willpower.

Weiss was grateful, yet again, for her strict childhood which she had so despised while she suffered through it. She had been taught since a young age that her aura capacity was not as good as most huntresses would have; so for the entirety of her childhood she had _always_ trained in precision and in minimizing energy expenditures.

The procedure on Yang, for example, would have normally taken several surgeons had they chosen to do it the way Weiss had done it; the energy and focus requirements were simply higher than normal people tended to have. But Weiss was a master in using as little as possible to do as much as possible, and her willpower was as strong as steel when she wanted it to be. Now was no exception.

Her muscles were the only part of her not literally drained, but unfortunately Weiss had never done significant strength training. As such, she had to put more of her aura into her limbs to give them the same strength that Ruby, Blake, or Yang could achieve with significantly less aura. It was one of the reasons Weiss had chosen her multi-action dust rapier, which was more rewarding for control and less reliant on brute force than most weapons.

Nonetheless, the strain was taxing Weiss heavily. She was now gulping for air, even though she had only been running for just over a minute. Looking at the cages for reference, she also realized bleakly that her run was laughably slow in her current state. It would be generous to call it a jog.

Her vision was now becoming extremely blurred. She didn't register the fact that she had reached the section of smooth wall that they had walked by earlier, nor did she notice the door set into it. She was focusing entirely on keeping her legs moving. Behind her she could hear the tunnel collapsing. She had gotten a decent head start on it, but now it was clearly out pacing them.

_Ruby you dolt… You need to wake up… I can't-_

As her mind began to go into its accustomed complaint mode, she felt her aura give out in her right leg. Weiss felt a dull thud of pain as her right knee collided painfully with the ground. Looking down, she saw and felt the aura draining out of her, more and more of her body losing energy as the loss spread. The instant it left her arms she dropped Ruby, utterly unable to hold the girl up with only her tired muscles.

Before she passed out, she remembered to lower Yang to the ground behind her. There was no reason to risk letting her team-mate get even more hurt, after all.

Satisfied that she had done all she could, Weiss slowly fell forward onto Ruby as the last of her aura drained from her chest, making it impossible to even sit upright.

Her last thought before succumbing to the darkness was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a proud one.

_Well Ruby, I've had my turn at playing hero. I hope you wake up in time to save us from being crushed._

With that, Weiss's consciousness abandoned her. Even more rapidly than her aura had left her, Weiss was asleep within a second of her final thought.

* * *

Several hours passed before Weiss regained consciousness. The first thing she felt was hunger, reminding her that it had been a long time since she ate. Or had it? Weiss realized she didn't know what time it was, nor why she was laying on her stomach on top of something uncomfortably log shaped. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes blearily and looked down, and let out a startled gasp and blushed slightly as she realized she had been sleeping _on top of_ Ruby.

_Oh, how incredibly indecent of me!_ Bemoaning her own behavior, Weiss was glad to see Ruby was still sleeping, and hoped the girl wouldn't remember Weiss's behavior.

Weiss now looked around. As she looked around the tunnel she slowly came to remember where she was, and what had been happening when she passed out. The first thing that sprung to mind was -

_The tunnel!_

Weiss stood up and whirled about in one swift motion, terrified of the idea that she may be crushed at any moment.

Her mouth dropped into an open O shape at what she saw.

The tunnel had completely collapsed up to the point of the smooth stone wall, where the rubble abruptly stopped. Some cracks had tried in vain to spread, but had ultimately failed.

Remembering what she had felt earlier when passing the door, Weiss began examining the smooth stone wall. Eventually she found what she was looking for; a single large glyph was impressed on the wall. Less than a quarter of a centimeter deep, it had some sort of a gray material stretched over it which had let it blend seamlessly into the wall when she had only been looking with her eyes. Weiss had to tear off the gray covering to examine it.

A meter in diameter, it glowed a soft dark blue and its pattern was incredibly intricate. Weiss felt sure she could examine it for days and not fully grasp it in its entirety, for it used many symbols she simply didn't know. She could vaguely recognize several runes for repulsion and a few for stopping, in addition to marks which would make it expand its effect in a straight line from itself across the tunnel. So it was clearly some sort of security glyph. Against what, she wouldn't have been able to guess… had she not already seen its effects in stopping the collapsing tunnel and spreading splits in the stone.

The rubble had stopped directly on the edge of the glyph, and not a single crack at any point in the passage made it past half a meter after entering the glyphs field of effect. It became clear to Weiss then that this glyph had been Junior's first line of defense against that monstrous man who had killed him.

_He must have been a smart man to have had this put in place… So why did he leave its safety?_ Weiss sighed softly. This only served as yet another reminder of what Professor Port enjoyed telling them constantly; the professor never stopped reminding them that even the most prepared, intelligent, or powerful hunter could lose his life if he was caught unprepared or in a lax moment. Weiss supposed Junior had fallen to much the same; a lax moment in his planning, and dropping of his guard against whoever that assassin had been. That was all it took to cause his end. A sobering reminder.

Weiss returned to the sisters, looking them over closely. Yang was still in stasis, much to the relief of Weiss, who had never actually tried to apply the theory before now. Ruby still seemed fine as well, aside from the fact that she hadn't woken up yet.

Redrawing Yang's glyphs and lifting her into the air again, Weiss stooped down to pick Ruby back up, activating her aura as she did so. This time her vision didn't blur, although her hunger and overall lack of energy still made it more challenging than it would have normally been.

Walking slowly, Weiss made her way to the end of the tunnel and back up the steps. She was surprised to find the club completely empty, but this was overridden by her immense joy at having escaped the repressive tunnel. Now that she was away from the disgusting atmosphere of that place, she felt like her chest had loosened, and she could breathe more easily.

Eventually she managed to find her way to the club exit. First out the sliding steel doors. Next, down a hallway, and finally she burst out the door onto the street of the city.

The late afternoon sunlight was blinding, shining directly into Weiss's eyes, and the city air smelled of pollutants and trash.

Weiss couldn't remember ever being so happy to be outside in her life.

* * *

Blake turned over in her bed. And again. And again… And again. It was completely hopeless, she couldn't feel at ease no matter what she did. It had only been a couple of hours since her team had left in a rush, and she felt useless. It was the first time in her life other people were out doing something and she was the one sitting behind, unproductive and unhelpful.

Her team-mates would probably assure her it wasn't her fault, that it wasn't fair to think like that when she was as injured as she was. To an extent, Blake knew such thoughts were true. But her heart was determined to feel guilty, and Blake was no match for her own emotions. She couldn't say if it was a side effect of being a faunus, since she had never experienced being a human, but sometimes her emotions seemed determined to stay whatever way they were rather than listen to the logical arguments her brain set forth in her attempts to dispel them.

If she was honest with herself, she found it quite frustrating not having control over her heart.

_I suppose such is life. _Blake sighed for the umpteenth time that afternoon. She would love to have something to claw at in her frustration. She didn't think that was because she was part cat, rather attributing it to human nature to be destructive when frustrated.

Finally she decided she absolutely couldn't take this anymore. It had been two days, she was mostly healed anyway. She didn't need all this concern. With this in mind she removed her heart beat monitor from her arm, and gently tugged the IV drip out from her arm. No sooner had she finished than a terrified looking nurse rushed into her room.

"MISS BELLADONNA! You almost gave _me_ a heart attack, just taking yourself off the monitor like that!" The nurse wore a stern expression now, making her way over to Blake and putting on hand on Blake's chest, trying to push her back down. "You need to rest, young lady."

"Ma'am please, I can eat food again and walk around, I don't need to be here. And to be frank, it's driving me up the walls just sitting here."

The nurse raised an eyebrow and said, "Wait a minute." She then pulled a small tablet out from a pouch on the back of her waistband and began tapping away at it.

Blake tried to steal a glance, to see who she was messaging, but couldn't find a way to do so discreetly. Unfortunately the nurse noticed her subtle head movements and said tartly, "I'm messaging Professor Goodwitch, if you must know. She's the one who spent hours talking with you after all, I'll see what she says."

Blake nodded, settling back in her bed, content to wait for an answer.

After a few minutes the nurse's tablet gave off a small _boop._ Opening it up, the nurse read the message, her frown gradually becoming more pronounced. Finally, she let the screen retract and stuffed the tablet back into its pouch. "The professor says you are free to go, so long as you restrain from entering any of the training buildings and don't overly exert yourself." Pausing once as she opened the door, the nurse added "Pyrrha Nikos is on her way, she's supposed to watch over you and ensure you don't break the rules. Don't leave without her or it's straight back to bed with you." The nurse seemed to smile at the thought of making Blake stay in the ward, but left without saying anything else.

Blake shuddered. _That lady is a bit creepy, _she thought idly. Eventually she pulled the covers all the way off herself and swung her legs out of the bed. Feeling slightly unsteady, she made her way to the wardrobe set in the corner of the room across from the bed and pulled it open. She smiled happily as she saw her own outfit was indeed there; patient gowns were not exactly high on her personal choices for fashion or for comfort.

Slipping off her gown, Blake briefly stretched as her body became more accustomed to standing again. Her legs were no longer wobbly, which was definitely a good thing; Pyrrha would have forced her straight back into bed without even asking the nurse if she saw Blake's legs shaking.

Moving at a leisurely pace, Blake began dressing. It took a few minutes, but when she was done she was finally starting to feel like herself again, feeling her outfit was perfectly complete as she finished by slipping her bow on over her cat ears.

_I guess it's at least partly true, the saying that the clothes make the man._ With that thought, Blake stepped out of her room for the first time since she had been wheeled in three days ago. She then had nothing to do but lean on the wall as she waited for Pyrrha, idly wishing she had a book to read. Since entering Beacon she had been hiding some of her less appropriate books, and she still wanted to finish _Ninjas of Love_. Perhaps this would be a good chance… if she could shake Pyrrha.

After a few minutes Blake began to feel impatient as she realized she had no idea where Pyrrha was, or how soon she would be coming to find Blake. Looking around, she spotted that there was a bench down the hall which was bathed in the pre-noon sunlight streaming in through a window directly behind it. Sitting down, Blake slumped and leaned her head back until her head was directly pointed at the window. Closing her eyes, she simply enjoyed sitting in the warmth.

_If I ever end up in a hospital again, I'm going to have to request a window that gets afternoon sun._

After an indescribable amount of time, Blake heard a small cough. "Hello… Blake? Are you… awake?" It was Pyrrha's voice, sounding gently concerned.

Blake sat up, blinking her eyes open and turning to find Pyrrha was sitting next to her. "Hello Pyrrha. I hear you're going to be my watchdog?" This was said with a slightly teasing tone, but still warm enough to make it clear she was being friendly.

Pyrrha smiled and shrugged. "All I was told was not to let you do any over the top physical activities, or go into the training rooms. As long as you don't try to break the rules, it'll be more like hanging out with a friend than watching over someone." Pyrrha was as direct and friendly as ever, but Blake didn't miss the subtle hint; Pyrrha wouldn't stand for her breaking the rules the nurse had set.

Sighing, Blake got up. "Well, let's go then. I'm famished, I'd like to eat." Pyrrha nodded once before following Blake as she went to the cafeteria.

* * *

When the assassin filled with glass finally awoke, it was mid-afternoon. He crawled out of the hollow of the tree, which was still damp with his blood, and began to inspect himself and his surroundings.

The first thing he noted were the obvious signs that it had rained recently; the ground was damp, and there were puddles randomly scattered around him. He felt his opinion of himself drop as he realized he had probably only lived because of dirty water dripping off the tree roots he had sheltered under and into his mouth.

His arm and leg had both fully healed. The glass wounds were all sealed, the glass still embedded in his skin and the skin itself slowly beginning to grow around the glass.

This needed to be remedied immediately, so he immediately began pulling the glass out of himself. Initially, it was easy. Grab, tug, deal with a little pain, bleed a bit, done. It got more difficult, though, as more and more blood began soaking his front. He hadn't thought ahead far enough to start low, so not only were his hands becoming covered in blood, but many of the shards themselves were becoming slick from the blood dripping onto them from above.

All in all, he removed seventeen pieces of glass in about five minutes. The last two gave him the most difficulty, as they were little more than nubs on the surface and extremely slippery.

His job finally done, he lay back against the tree trunk for a few minutes, his breath coming in ragged breaths. He drew from his waistband a small container filled with water and, with shaking hands, fumbled with its twist off cap for a bit. Once he got it open he immediately poured it all down his parched throat, fearful that he would die of dehydration before anything else. Aware of the fact that he was also in great risk of becoming anemic, he only gave himself a minute more of rest before picking himself up. He needed to hunt. If he managed to successfully kill something its blood would serve as water to replenish his own lacking blood levels, and he would need food soon as well.

However, he was not in a good condition for hunting. Instead he employed a grisly baiting tactic; sticking his fingers into his wounds, he thoroughly coated them in blood before flicking the red liquid onto the ground in front of him. Going around the clearing, he repeated the action three times, each 90 degrees from the other in terms of the tree trunk and a few meters away from the tree.

Once he had spread his blood well, he drew his dagger. Turning towards the smooth tree trunk he leaped directly upwards, stabbing his dagger into the tree when he reached the height of his jump, at about four meters. From here he was able to pull himself up with his right hand until it the dagger was even with his shoulder. He then reached across with his left hand, cupped his palm over the shaft, and removed his right hand. Next he shoved downwards with his left arm until the dagger was next to his left hip. Now he could finally grab onto one of trees tall branches and pull himself up into the tree.

He settled here to wait. He felt fortunate when a brown bear stomped into the clearing just a short while after he had settled in, sniffing at the leaves his blood was on. Moving through the branches until he was directly above it, he formed his hands into a shape suitable for crushing bones. His palms directly by each other, and his fingers folded up so that the nails touched and his 2nd and 3rd sets of knuckles were facing outwards. Aiming these knuckles at the bears head, he dived out of the tree head first, arms stretched in front of him to strike the bear.

It went both better and worse than he had planned. Better, because the bear died from the single attack. His knuckles shattered its skull and sunk deep into the bears brain. Worse, because he felt two of his fingers break, and most of them dislocate.

He took the time to force his dislocated fingers back into place, leaving the broken fingers, his right ring finger and left index finger, alone. He knew they would heal themselves in his sleep.

For the immediate moment, he wasn't concerned with eating though. He immediately began letting the blood trickling from the bears neck pool into his palms, drinking as much of it as he could. When this was depleted as the bear's heart stopped completely and gravity was no longer sufficient at the angle the bear's body was at, he resorted to even more desperate measures. He set his water container down, its top open. He began scooping out the bears brain in small handfuls, squeezing gray matter and, more importantly, blood out of the spongy flesh and into his flask. When it was finally filled he picked it up and drained it in two long gulps.

Sated, he walked back over to the tree and leaned up against it. He was planning on napping and making a fire to cook when he woke up.

His plan was interrupted by a soft pinging sound.

Scowling, he pulled out his tablet and pulled the screen out from its small folding container.

He saw the battery life had about 1/3 of its total charge left. It had been a long time since it got power added, but it had also been inactive for most of that time. He saw the reason for the pinging was an incoming call from his least favorite person, and that he had missed three calls from the same man.

He flicked accept nonetheless, and a video of another assassin, similarly wrapped completely in all black, popped up.

His eyes were solid gray, lacking pupils or irises.

"What do you want Cerberus? Has our wonderful guard dog decided he has some information he would like to bless me with on this fine day?" He sounded annoyed, even to himself. Cerberus may have trained with him when they were in the regular programs, but the two men had undergone significantly different experiments.

"Easy there, Vulcan. I'm just calling up to tell you something I _know_ will interest you." Cerberus leaned forward in the video, his eyes crinkling showing he was smiling beneath his wraps. "I assume you remember the experiment that broke you?"

Vulcan was gripping his tablet tightly, wanting to destroy it. But he didn't. Instead he simply said "Everyone knows about my experiment. I was subject nine to experiment thirty-two. It broke my ability to use aura correctly, and instead granted me improved healing abilities. It's the curse I live with." He spat the last words out.

Cerberus pulled his wraps down, so that Vulcan could see his face. So that Vulcan would see as he gave an enormous, sharp and toothy, smile. "I thought you would like to know that your target is Ruby Rose. In other words, subject number eight to experiment thirty-two. And, if you follow the scientists' line of thinking, her success is what made you a viable candidate. In other words…" He paused, and when he resumed speaking his voice was a whisper. "Ruby Rose, your target, is the reason you're a broken hound, Vulcan." With that Cerberus terminated the call, leaving the forest quiet.

Vulcan stowed away the tablet. He could feel his blood boiling.

He wouldn't wait a fortnight. Ruby Rose would die tonight.

* * *

**Well, that was an unpleasant thing to write with the bear. **

**As always, please review/follow if you liked it, and PM me any questions you have.**


	7. Chapter 7

When Ruby opened her eyes, she was immediately confused.

_Where are Weiss and Yang? I need to protect them!_

Sitting up, she looked around. She was alone in her dorm room, laying on Weiss's bed. But none of the girls she shared the room with were present, causing her to instantly begin hyperventilating.

She needed to protect them. Where were they? She didn't know and didn't pause to think about where they might be as she lurched to her feet and began searching mechanically. Looking thoroughly around the room, she didn't hesitate as she pulled the closet open, or as she stormed into the bathroom. Not finding her teammates, she whirled around to exit-

And saw her eyes in the mirror. Solid white.

Ruby gasped upon seeing them, and as she did so they returned to normal. She would have been glad to see her familiar silver color returning if it weren't for the fact that as she did she felt like she was about to collapse, her limbs becoming drained of energy.

Staggering to the counter, she leaned on it heavily as she began searching her eyes. They were completely normal. But they hadn't been a moment before.

A moment before. What had she been doing? She had been searching for something… For Weiss and Yang! Weiss, who was operating on Yang…

Ruby's head pounded horribly as her memories from shortly before collapsing returned to her, causing her to grimace in pain and hunch over the sink as tears began spilling from her eyes. As she remembered the tunnel and what had happened, she only became more and more confused.

Looking back to the mirror now, cheeks flushed from crying, she re-examined her eyes. They weren't any different from how they had been for the entirety of her life.

_Why didn't I ask him about anything? Why was I so dead set on protecting the other two?_ Shuddering, Ruby realized that her normal self wouldn't have had the courage to face the man who shared the eyes she had now seen in herself twice.

Staring into her eyes, Ruby thought about all that had happened recently. She reached a conclusion. _I need to figure out how to get control those eyes… I need their power to protect my team._

Turning away now, she strode to the exit of her dorm, intent on finding out where her teammates were, and how Yang was doing.

* * *

Blake was standing off to one side of the procedure room, watching the proceedings intently. It had been two hours since a bedraggled Weiss had made it onto Beacon grounds, carrying an unconscious Ruby and levitating along a frozen Yang. Naturally, the first persons to detect their return had been Blake and Pyrrha, since Blake had been eagerly awaiting her teammates' return.

Just not like this.

All Weiss had been able to say, panting heavily from running, was "Ruby is only… Unconscious. Yang needs… Treatment. Help me… Help me carry take her to the medical wing."

Pyrrha had immediately taken Ruby from Weiss, saying "I'll take Ruby to your dorm and then meet you in the medical wing." Glancing at Blake she added "Weiss, I understand you're exhausted, but please don't make Blake carry Yang alone. She's not supposed to do anything to strain herself."

Weiss nodded, and Pyrrha sprinted off, carrying Ruby in her arms as she did so, supporting her as easily as if she were a pillow. Blake had to admit to herself that the girl was impressively strong, if nothing else.

Weiss weakly said "My glyphs actually only have a couple minutes left, I'm glad I made it to Beacon in time."

After that they went as far as they could before the glyphs ran out, before resorting to both of them supporting one half of Yang and carrying her in between them like an awkward piece of luggage.

Upon feeling Yang and looking her over more closely, Blake realized something was _very_ wrong with her partner. Clearing her throat she asked "So, Weiss, what _exactly_ happened to Yang? She seems to be-"

"Dead but alive? There's a lot to explain, I would prefer to do it once. To a doctor who can treat her. You can hear there."

Blake was a bit annoyed, but accepted the pale girl's request. Weiss did, after all, appear exhausted, and Blake was courteous enough to acknowledge that.

After that they made slow progress to the medical wing entrance. Fortunately, the instant they had entered they were noticed by the nursing staff who were mostly gathered around chatting nearby. The nurses took Yang from the two girls and, as per instruction from Weiss, immediately went to fetch Goodwitch and the head physician. Blake found it impressive how easily Weiss made them follow her orders, despite her youth and improper appearance.

Despite dirty clothes and the beginnings of bags under her eyes, Weiss was as commanding looking as most company officials who spent hours making themselves look perfect. The Schnee heiress was operating at peak capacity, and it was a sight to behold.

After Yang was safely placed on a bed, the nurses withdrew to leave Weiss and Blake alone in the room. The moment they closed the door, Weiss collapsed into a chair and closed her eyes. "If you wouldn't mind, wake me when you hear them coming."

"…Sure." As soon as Blake said this, Weiss formed a strained smile. After a moment it faded away as she slumped slightly and fell into sleep.

_What willpower._ Blake also sat down, on the opposite side of the door. Nearly ten minutes passed before her ears hidden underneath her bow twitched and swiveled towards the entrance. Somebody was approaching, and quickly. Blake immediately went to shake Weiss awake.

Blinking a few times, Weiss stood and waited. Momentarily, Professors Ozpin, Goodwitch, and a man Blake didn't recognize had entered.

…And since then, Blake had been standing to one side. The man she didn't know, Doctor Wendell, had immediately began examining Yang and, upon finding her to be frozen, questioning Weiss.

As Weiss spoke and pointed out various things to the doctor, Blake's respect for her grew. Although she didn't fully understand the talk about glyphs or the theories Weiss had applied to freeze Yang without killing her, Blake could tell from the way they were treating her that Weiss was incredibly talented in this field. The doctor was nodding and agreeing with everything she said, and Goodwitch only interjected to ask about something she had done with glyphs on occasion, when Weiss hadn't been clear.

But Blake was still tense. She hadn't yet heard it said that Yang would be fine, and she couldn't relax until she did. She started when Ozpin joined her, leaning on the wall. "Why are you here, professor?" It seemed a natural question to Blake, and the professor reacted as surprised as she had ever seen him before… Which was, that is to say, not surprised at all.

"I'm the headmaster of Beacon, and this is the latest in a series of unprecedented events, Miss Belladonna. It's become a source of great concern to us, and at this point I feel it's very important for me to know of new developments immediately, so I will be watching over this affair in person. I still need to question your team as to where they went and what happened, but for now I will let them treat Miss Xiao Long." His reply was in the same slightly dry and flat tone he always used.

"I see… Have you done anything in regards to academy security?"

"I can't give details to students, much less novices such as yourself, but yes. Measures _have_ been taken to ensure that when, or if, another intruder attempts to enter Beacon, _he will fail."_ These last words were said with a conviction Blake hadn't heard from the man before. She wasn't sure how to reply, so she let the conversation lapse into silence as they both watched the other three bustle about Yang, preparing to unfreeze and treat her. Fortunately, Weiss said she should still be unconscious when unfrozen since she had been so when frozen. This meant they could use minor pain restricting glyphs on her, rather than drugs.

Unfortunately for their plans, when they finally did unfreeze her, Yang immediately opened her eyes, causing Weiss to back off slightly, then say, "Doctor Wendell she needs to be sedated for the operation."

The doctor nodded, quickly calling to a nurse to bring in a standard operating kit and IV drip. A nurse appeared quickly, wheeling in a cart covered in various blades and several pre-filled syringes with various fluids in them, along with some surgeon's masks and operating gloves. A moment later she returned with an IV bag, which she hooked onto the machine already placed by the bed.

Yang tried to sit up as she saw the cart covered in blades, opening her mouth to speak. The moment she attempted to use her abdominal muscles, however, she instead gasped and laid back, her face contorting into a silent wail of agony.

Blake was still by the wall, resisting the urge to rush to Yang's side, but still ready to jump forward and restrain her partner if need be before she was drugged. Fortunately, Weiss stepped up and took Yang's hand in her own, leaning down and whispering something to Yang. Yang fiercely clenched Weiss's hand, nodding once as the needle went into her other arm. After a few moments, her hand dropped from Weiss's as she passed out again. As soon as she passed out, Weiss repositioned her arm into a laying position and inserted the IV halfway down her forearm.

With a nod from Weiss, Doctor Wendell picked up a thin scalpel and promptly cut a large X on Yang's blackened stomach, which was swelling quite badly. As the knife cut into her flesh, Yang's abdomen released large amounts of blood and visceral fluids that had been floating around in her system, misplaced when her organs had ruptured. Blake flinched slightly as the incredibly pungent reek of death hit her nostrils, causing her to gag slightly.

Still, both Weiss and Wendell weren't deterred in the slightest, peeling the skin back slightly to give them room to maneuver. Using conventional blades and small red glyphs provided by Goodwitch to cauterize the incisions, their hands quickly darted about as they searched about Yang's abdomen for un-repaired damages, quickly fixing them whenever a new problem was found. After only a couple of minutes, Wendell said they had done all they could, and that it was more important to let her replenish her fluids from the IV now that she had lost so much liquid in her torso. Her face unbelievably haggard looking, Weiss took a moment before she agreed, setting her knives aside and removing her medical gloves as she stepped back from the table. Wendell quickly sewed Yang back up, using traditional stitches to hold together her surface wounds.

Wendell also stepped back, and, nodding towards Goodwitch, said "If you would please re-check for any missed injuries."

Goodwitch complied, stepping forward to be directly next to Yang, where Weiss had been a moment before. Closing her eyes, she quickly summoned almost a dozen small white glyphs, and began passing them through Yang's entire body, her eyes closed.

After a moment she re-opened her eyes and said, "Miss Schnee and yourself have done a splendid job, Doctor Wendell. The only thing missed is a minor concussion, which isn't severe enough to need treatment in itself."

Blake saw Weiss looked frustrated at this news, though she wasn't sure why. This was fantastic news! Yang would recover! Before she could make her way over to Weiss, however, she heard shouting from outside.

"Like we said you can't go in there-!"

The voice of a frantic nurse stopped as the door suddenly flew open, revealing a disheveled and panicked looking Ruby. The instant the door crashed open, she flew to Weiss and seized her by the shoulders. "Is Yang okay?!"

Weiss appeared stunned by her leader's sudden appearance. Still very tired, she took too long trying to formulate a coherent response, causing Ruby to shake her and demand again, "Is she going to be okay?!"

Blake intervened, prying Ruby off of Weiss, who slowly backed into a chair by the wall and fell into it.

Blake forced Ruby to look at her. She was startled by how fierce Ruby's expression was, but still managed to calmly say "Yang is going to be fine. Don't worry, Ruby."

It was at this moment that Professor Ozpin stepped forward, clearing his throat once. This action, although quiet and not filled with volume, still carried enough authority to make everyone in the room look at him.

"Excuse me, Ruby, Weiss, Blake. I feel we should take this outside of the hospital room… And discuss recent events. As your team seems to be at the very center of it, I would very much like to speak with you three."

* * *

Vulcan had been prowling the grounds of Beacon for a few hours, until it was thoroughly swathed in shadows. Fortunately, unlike the last time he had infiltrated the facility, slow moving clouds now covered the moon, blotting out any light to see him by.

Unfortunately, and also unlike the last time he had entered the academy, he could now see several guardians.

Perched on random balconies across the academy's various structures there were dark clothed figures. Probably meant to blend into the dark, but Vulcan could still faintly see them with his eyes. Still, he had to assume they could spot him just as well in the gloom, so he moved extremely slowly and cautiously, always advancing no more than a dozen meters, and never risking entering one's line of sight for even a split second.

It was difficult. The sentries were very good. Doubtlessly either alumni hunters, or the best guards lien could buy. Probably a mix of both, although he had no way of knowing for sure.

It was all pointless speculation, though; all that mattered was that they were making his mission more difficult.

Vulcan was moving as quickly as possible, but he had only covered about half the distance between the edge of the forest and the closest building. He wouldn't reach it at this pace until dawn, at which point it would be far too late to strike.

Deciding to risk detection for one deadly moment, he focused on his legs to try to pump aura into them. He was poised to spring, ready for the moment when his aura would randomly surge into action, and prepared for the consequences if it left just as quickly.

After several minutes of concentration his reward came. The moment it had entered both the calf and thigh muscles of both of his legs he pushed with all of his might into the ground and hurtled himself towards the building. Unfortunately, in his haste, he had put full force on his only recently healed right foot, while it wasn't reinforced by aura. He felt several bones fracture from the powerful kick he used to propel himself forward from the bush he had been hiding behind.

As he sped towards the wall at a deadly speed, he cupped both his hands and raked them along the ground, trying to do the same with his feet, dragging the tips in the dirt. Even though it was critical to make it to the building's wall without being seen, it would do no good if his whole body _crunched_ against it and was destroyed. Tearing up his hands was worth that much, even if it went to the bone.

Stopping a couple meters short of the wall, he swiftly moved up against it, pressing himself as flatly against the stone wall as he could. After several seconds without hearing anything, he allowed himself to relax a fraction of the tension that he had been holding in him. It seemed no one had seen his mad half second long dash to the wall, if you could even call it a dash.

He slid along the wall, keeping his eyes up to watch for any sentries who may see him. Seeing that they hadn't posted a single person to watch the buildings themselves, confident in their abilities to see any approachers, Vulcan silently thanked the gods for their arrogance.

He was now inside Beacon proper. He made his way slowly but steadily towards the dormitories, moving swiftly enough to avoid the risk of someone feeling his presence, but slowly enough that he didn't risk being seen by anyone roaming the halls at night.

After exiting the first building he was in, he only needed to cross one open stretch of land to enter the dormitories. Looking around, he saw that not a single sentry was looking his way. He had never felt so delighted over incompetence.

After a short sprint, he silently opened the door, entered, and closed it behind him. To his surprise, there stood in front of him a young man. He was blonde, with a white chest plate and a plain sword hanging off his belt. Not pausing, Vulcan immediately clapped his hand over the youth's gaping mouth, twisted around to be behind the boy, then strangled him.

He paused before killing the scraggly young man hanging unconscious from his arms.

_Do I need to kill him? This is do or die, tonight. If I fail, I'm never coming back._

Vulcan unceremoniously dropped the boy, who landed with a soft "oomph!" in his sleep. He didn't wake up, simply laying there, his breaths troubled sounding but steady and even.

_Feel fortunate kid. You may be the only one I get to spare tonight._

He didn't encounter another soul as he made his way to where he knew the targets room was located.

He paused outside of the door, remembering the faunus. He silently drew his dagger up from his waist and flipped it into a throwing position. He then entered the room without a sound.

It was pitch black inside. He could only make out vague shapes, even with his vision. And the first thing he saw was that the faunus wasn't in the room. He let out an inner sigh of relief as he flipped the dagger back into its place in his waistband.

So the bunk bed on the right was empty, but the bunk bed on the left had _two_ occupants. Vulcan let out a miniscule growl of frustration as he realized these girls were determined not to make anything easy on him, as they were both sharing one bed. Not near each other, in fact both were practically falling off the bed, on opposite sides, but still in close proximity to each other.

Approaching, he realized they had both simply collapsed in their clothing, and were not even under the covers. Whatever they had been doing beforehand must have left them exhausted.

Vulcan paused to weigh his options. He didn't want to risk fighting a one versus two, but the target was on the far side of the bed, against the wall. This made it impossible to kill her without the other girl noticing. As for the girl near the edge of the bed closer to him, she was only identifiable by what he dimly recognized as a white dress.

After a moment he decided; he would kill the white girl, then fight Ruby if she woke up.

Kneeling, he hovered one hand over her stomach, and one over her throat, preparing to use his favorite technique to kill sleeping targets. It was virtually silent, and left behind little evidence. It was risky, because the shifting of her struggle might wake Ruby, but he still didn't hesitate, even after he failed to channel any aura into his arms.

He pushed down on her stomach and windpipe with all his might, intending to kill.

**Hey guys, really glad I managed to get this chapter out today (even if it is technically Wednesday.) I sincerely hope you all enjoyed it, and intend to get another chapter out tomorrow, if I fail it **_**will **_**be out by Thursday night.**

**As always, please review/follow, and PM me any questions!**


	8. Chapter 8

Blake followed Professor Ozpin out of the suite, Ruby following along while being supporting Weiss, who looked on the verge of passing out.

Raising his eyebrow, Ozpin said, "If you'd prefer, you could put Miss Schnee in your room first, since she doesn't seem fit for discussion."

Weiss shook her head and said, "I need to be in this meeting."

Ozpin simply nodded, not pushing her further.

Leading them down the hallway, they eventually came to a door with the nameplate "Doctor Wendell," which Ozpin entered without a moment's pause of hesitation. Under normal circumstances Blake might have laughed at his forwardness in using the doctor's office, but she still couldn't feel mirth. She was still having trouble coping with all that was happening, and still confused as to what her team had done.

The office was medium sized; not large but respectable. It had several lush chairs on their side of a large cedar desk, and one rather uncomfortable looking office chair behind the desk, which Ozpin took for himself before propping his elbows up and addressing them.

"So, Ruby, Weiss, where did you two go with Yang, and how did all of this happen?"

Ruby helped Weiss into a chair before replying. "Well, Yang thought she knew someone who would know something about the guy who attacked Blake…"

The story was neither informative, nor clear in what Blake and Ozpin _could_ glean from it.

"So, you all went to a potentially dangerous place without a care in the world and without supervision because you felt like getting revenge?" For the first time, Blake thought she detected an emotional shift in his tone. In her opinion it was fortunate that he shared her opinions on what her team had done; both Blake and Ozpin felt what the three had done was outrageous, and felt shocked and angry at the three girls' recklessness.

If Ozpin truly felt anger, he didn't show it. Instead he took up an empty mug and sipped at it pointlessly, perhaps force of habit, before replying. When he did it was to calmly say, "Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, you are both fools." Ruby flinched slightly, while Weiss showed little other reaction than to drop her gaze from the professor.

His face softened. "That said, I'm glad you are both unharmed, and that Miss Xiao Long will recover."

He got up and walked around the desk and passed them, opening the door and pausing in its frame. "I suggest you three all return to your dorms and rest. We have much more to do to increase security, as it would seem a war of sorts has been declared on us by an underground organization. I intend to find out who they are, what their motives are, and how to stop them from harassing my students." With that he departed, leaving the door open behind him.

Ruby sighed as she helped Weiss out of her chair, turning to face Blake. "Are you going to come back to the dorms with us?"

"No… No, I think I'll stay and watch over Yang for a little while." Blake departed the office first, hurrying back down the hall to Yang's room.

Pushing the door open, Blake was relieved to see Yang was asleep now, changed out of her clothes into a patient's gown, and peacefully breathing steadily. The machines running the IV drip whirred softly, so quiet Blake doubted humans could hear them.

Pulling a chair alongside Yang's bed, Blake held Yang's right hand with her left, and rested her head lightly on Yang's shoulder.

Closing her eyes, Blake drifted into sleep, comforted by the presence of her precious team-mate. She was terrified of losing Yang, because even though she was loathe to admit she liked Yang out loud, she was the girl who had commandeered Blake's heart.

* * *

"Ruby, stop." At Weiss's voice, Ruby immediately froze in place for comic effect. To her dismay, Weiss didn't crack even a quarter of a smile.

"Ruby, I know there was something you left out in your story."

Ruby froze again, this time not for comic effect, but from terror of having her secret ousted from its hiding place.

"…That said, I don't know what it is you're hiding, so don't worry about that part."

Ruby swallowed, her tightened throat loosening a bit as she tried to relax. As casually as she could, she asked, "So, why are you saying I'm hiding something if you don't even know? Do you have proof?" She tried to end with a teasing tone, but was afraid she had probably failed.

"… You dolt. How could I not notice you were hiding something? You kept nervously clutching your dress… Er, look, how I know isn't important okay?" Weiss blushed furiously as she refused to look at Ruby, avoiding all eye contact. Ruby grinned at how cute she was acting, fully relaxing when she realized Weiss had no bad intentions.

Clearing her throat, Weiss continued, "I just wanted to let you know you can tell me anything… Also, I wanted to talk to you about sleeping arrangements."

Ruby literally tripped and fell over, pulling Weiss, who had still been leaning on her for support, down with her.

Landing on her stomach, Ruby let out a small _oomph_ as Weiss fell on top of her. Weiss quickly rolled off of her and sat up, brushing herself off. "You're surprisingly clumsy when you're surprised."

Ruby sat up and stared at Weiss, her silver eyes making two huge plates. "But you just said… You want to… Uh, that is to say, discuss um…"

"Sleeping arrangements? Yes, I do. Come on, help me up, let's walk. I'll tell you as we go, and don't fall again!"

Complying, Ruby helped Weiss up. After a couple minutes the exited the medical wing, and Weiss shivered slightly in the dark of dust as a sharp wind blew against them. "Look, to be honest, I think we're going to get attacked again tonight."

Ruby's mouth dropped open. "How do you know that? Why would they?"

Weiss sighed as if Ruby were behaving stupidly, which Ruby found offensive considering not even Ozpin had suggested they were in danger tonight.

"Look, we don't know why these people are coming after us. It's been a few days since the first attack, which already means they were probably ready to attack again, and now, to make matters worse, we went and engaged one of them on what seems to be _their_ home turf. I would be willing to bet lien on them attacking again, if for no other reason than sheer stupid pride." Weiss sounded bitter at the end of this, though Ruby couldn't understand why.

Trying to lighten the atmosphere, Ruby joked, "It's not like betting lien is a big deal for you anyway though, right?"

She felt like she could have melted under the scathing glare this earned her.

"Ruby this is serious. You _do_ realize how important this is, right?" She let out a long sigh before continuing. "To be frank, I _need_ to go to sleep. But I'm also nearly certain someone will come. Because I won't be any good in a fight in my condition, I want to be the bait."

Ruby's mind had to work for several seconds to process what Weiss had just said, and immediately shook her head. "No. You can't be bait Weiss, I won't let you take that risk."

"There won't be any risk, here, let me tell you my plan." They had entered the dorms at this point, and were making their way towards their own room. Weiss fell silent for a moment as they stepped off the stairs onto their floor and saw Jaune heading down the hall towards them. Ruby and Jaune gave each other a small high-five as they passed, Jaune looking at Weiss with some concern in his face, but not bugging them with questions.

As they entered the dorm, Weiss said to Ruby, "Now, quickly as you can, shove my bed up against the wall. If possible move your own bed over it as well. No, don't ask why, just do it!"

Ruby, though frustrated, complied, rushing about her task of moving the beds as quickly as possible.

As soon as Ruby was finished, Weiss literally flopped onto her bed with her umpteenth sigh that night. Closing her eyes, Weiss murmured "Turn off the lights and lay on the other side of the bed. Just trust me."

Still annoyed that she wasn't being told any of the reasoning behind her actions, Ruby still followed her partner's instructions to the tee. Turning the lights off, she groped her way to the bed in the darkness. Upon finding the bed, she crawled onto if from the foot of it. She ended up finding herself lying facing the wall, only a couple inches away.

"Now, hide your weapon between yourself and the wall and wait. Be ready to react to the first thing you hear."

"…"

"Ruby?"

"Yes, Weiss?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do, Weiss."

"Thank you, Ruby."

With that, Weiss seemed to drift into sleep, though Ruby had no way of knowing for sure. Letting her eyes flutter to a halfway point, neither opened nor closed, she slowed her breathing to feign sleep and waited.

* * *

Vulcan pushed, and immediately knew he was in trouble. As soon as his hand shoved on the white girl's stomach, aura flickered into life around her throat. Her breath still whooshed out of her, but as he shoved his right hand down on her neck he failed to make contact with her skin. Her aura was too weak to force him back, so instead she rapidly sunk into the mattress as its soft material gave way under the force he was exerting.

Her eyes flew open, perfectly calm, and looked into his own. Caught off guard, he didn't notice as Ruby flipped over and fired at him until the bullet had lodged itself into his chest, before blowing through him with a chunk of his left lung. He flew backwards into the other bunk bed, breaking one of the bed posts and sending the books supporting the upper bed flying.

Gasping, Vulcan clutched at the gaping wound in his chest, staring as Ruby flipped herself over the other girl, using her left arm as a spring on the bed so as not to disturb the white one's posture, as she was still simply lying in bed.

The upper bed was sliding forward, now, and at its current path would land between Vulcan and Ruby, on its side. Rather than use it as a potential barrier, Vulcan planted his foot on one of the slats of its frame which normally supported the mattress. Pushing with all the force he could muster, he sent the bed flying towards Ruby. He knew it collided when he heard a small shriek of surprise and it slammed into her entire body.

His elation was short lived, however, as she suddenly cut the bed into two, her scythe fully extended and readied for combat. As he staggered to his feet, he saw her face for the first time, and his heart skipped a beat.

She had their eyes. Opaque and monochrome, her eyes were a brilliant white that almost seemed to gleam despite the utter lack of light in the room. But, unlike any of the other subjects, she wasn't bound to the will of someone else. What, then, enabled her to use her Determination?

Now on his feet, Vulcan silently prowled to his left. He realized that she couldn't see him when neither her head nor eyes tracked him in the slightest. Perhaps her transformation was incomplete still, perhaps she hadn't fully awoken, or she didn't gain all of Determination's benefits because she was self-determined?

Whatever the reason, it didn't matter. What mattered was that he had found a weakness, and he needed to abuse it if he wanted to win. If he struck in the dark repeatedly he could wear down her aura and eventually cut her sweet little throat open.

Deciding to proceed with this course, he darted forward from her left, his dagger flying towards her neck. The instant he entered the thick layer of red aura that coated her body he felt himself being repelled. He brought his left leg up and pushed off against her left thigh, jumping away from her with his kick.

He only barely avoided her red scythe as it swung after him, singing a bloody song of death as it sliced through the air. It was unnerving, that scythe. Black and red, it spoke of a much darker person than the figure of the girl did. Although her eyes, too, spoke of a much darker person than the rest of her.

Landing, he began slowly stalking to the side again. Going to the left again, he watched as her eyes slowly scanned the room, which was doubtlessly impossibly dark to her.

The girl still lying on the bed spoke slowly, breaking the silence. "Ruby… The lights… Stop focusing on just standing there… Get the lights and beat him!" Her words were slightly slurred, and her voice was strained. _She_ sounded unreasonably close to death considering how easily they had duped him and repelled his attempts to kill her.

Ruby slowly turned her head to look at the other girl. "Is that an order to kill him, Weiss?"

Unfortunately for Ruby's question Weiss appeared to have fallen asleep.

Ruby turned mechanically, her head now facing in the direction of the door. Realizing she was going to look for the lights, Vulcan dashed forwards again. He attempted to repeat his earlier procedure, with the change that this time he dropped down before kicking at her. This time he kicked at her shin and tried to slide away on the floor. Unfortunately, her scythe was better prepared this time. As his left foot was en-route to strike her left shin bone, her scythe had already lined up over her left leg and was swinging downwards.

Though she had doubtlessly expected him to strike her thigh again, she didn't hesitate to follow through on her swing as the blade passed through where his leg would have been. Instead, it found itself digging its way into his calf at the moment his foot collided with her shin at full force.

Her footing slipping out from under her as his kick managed to force her leg back despite her aura, she became momentarily vulnerable as her aura flickered. Taking advantage of this, Vulcan once again positioned himself to push the object in front of him away. This time, he placed his right foot over Ruby's sternum before letting out a mighty kick that sent her stumbling backwards, causing her to grasp her chest as the force made her sternum crack slightly, and causing him to flinch in pain as the bones in his right foot shrieked again, nearly breaking this time.

Unfortunately for him, her scythe didn't come out of its place in his leg easily. It tore through most of the muscles in his left calf before being all the way out, and left a long jagged gash in his leg. Looking at it briefly, he cursed at the sight of several jagged bone shards lying on the floor in a pool of blood, his bone itself being mostly smashed out and having a gaping hole in it he could see straight through. He wouldn't be standing on that leg anytime soon, and standing on his right wasn't safe either.

Deciding it was his only choice, though, he stood up and began hobbling on his right leg, intending to work his way to her side again. If she went for the lights again, this time he would be probably be able to smash through her aura, as it was much more difficult to keep one's aura up and strong while already injured.

Ruby did indeed stand and make her way to the lights again, her face one of grim acceptance. She didn't seem to want to go to the lights, but she did nevertheless, making Vulcan wonder if she truly had self-determination.

Unable to dash to her, Vulcan instead quickly went and crouched just below the light switch, and waited for her to approach. His hands both clasped his dagger, blade pointed to the ceiling, ready to thrust straight up.

Waiting for her approach, he moved the instant she was in range. Pushing against the ground yet again, he sprung towards her throat while simultaneously thrusting the dagger forward in a deadly motion to take out her jugular.

Ruby's white eyes were staring at the dagger, and her head jerked to the side and an incredibly fast pace, her neck releasing a bad sounding crunch as she did so.

_Did she just break her own neck to avoid my knife?_ Vulcan only felt astonishment for a split second before the scythe's blade entered his skull.

Knife clattering to the floor, Vulcan dropped to his knees, body slack. Moments later he fell backwards into the wall with a thud.

With a manic grin on her face, Ruby began chopping her blade into his body, over and over again.

With the smell of blood coating her, she mutilated his corpse.

* * *

**I hope this chapter was enjoyable!**

**I also hope you're all dealing well with my flipping between characters, and occasionally across small time gaps, as I know it's not exactly a normal or easy to follow way of narrating the story. I value its ability to show multiple points of view and freely change the setting, however, and will most likely continue writing my story this way.**

**Please review/follow if you liked it! As always, PM me any questions you have.**


	9. Chapter 9

Weiss was awakened by a scream. Slowly becoming awake, the first thing she saw was that it was morning; soft light was streaming in through the window at a heavy angle, pooling on Ruby… Who was laying on her back in a pool of blood.

_Blood?_ Weiss jerked into a sitting position now, and was horrified by what she saw.

Blake was standing in the doorway, backed against the frame with one hand over her mouth, staring with huge amber eyes at Ruby and at the… thing, next to her.

That thing, Weiss quickly came to realize, was what had once been a human body. Now, it resembled something closer to a pile of barely upright red paste, with chunks of white bone showing throughout its structure. And the source of the devastation seemed to be… Ruby.

Lying on her back, knees folded underneath her, she appeared to still be asleep. Her right hand was lightly wrapped around the haft of Crescent Rose, whose blade was laying a short distance from her, closer to the pile of red mush.

Weiss shuddered as she recalled what Ruby had asked her.

"_Is that an order to kill him, Weiss?"_

Weiss felt herself fill up with horror as she realized she couldn't run from the conclusion she was drawing. _Ruby _had killed him, but worse still Ruby hadn't _just _killed him, she had maimed him beyond recognition as a human being.

Blake closed the dorm door and slowly made her way around the grotesque scene, careful to avoid disturbing Ruby and getting any blood on herself. Stooping down by Weiss's bed, she muttered "Yang is awake, she wants to see you two." Glancing back to Ruby for a moment before continuing, Blake looked slightly sick. "But I don't know what we should do about… This situation." She sounded like she chose the last words carefully.

Weiss took a shuddering breath, her chest tightening as she considered what to do. No matter what, Ruby was in trouble. She had committed murder, and worse yet there was no longer any way to prove who's body it was; for all the professors would know, that was some student. If any students were missing, they might try to blame it on Ruby. Weiss doubted something like that would happen, but the thought was still worth taking into consideration.

Weiss turned and climbed out of bed, Blake also standing and backing up to give her room. Whatever happened, Weiss was determined to keep her red partner out of trouble as much as possible.

"I think we should tell a professor about what we've found and request to take Ruby to Yang's room while we wait for them to question her." Blake didn't sound forceful or demanding, but her tone was odd. Nervous, Weiss realized. Blake was nervous about how they would handle the situation. That was perfect for Weiss, as it meant Blake wasn't determined to turn Ruby in.

"Blake, do you think we could cover this up somehow?" Weiss spoke slowly, trying to keep her tone even and calm.

"Why would you want to? We don't even know-"

"We do know, actually. Or at least I know."

"Who is it then? Who did Ruby kill, and why didn't you stop her from doing this… this _abhorrent _desecration of their body? Weiss, this is, quite frankly, disgusting."

"That body was a man, and he was from the same association who attacked you and nearly killed Yang. I predicted he would come here, and with Ruby, set up a trap. That said, I passed out because of how exhausted I was. I wasn't awake when she did all of this…"

Seeing Blake was sitting on the fence, undecided, Weiss decided to spill her suspicions as well. "I think Ruby is hiding something from us, something she's afraid of. And I think it's probably related to this. Blake, you _know_ Ruby! She would never do something like this!"

Blake sighed, "Fine. You're right, I don't see Ruby doing this if she were in her normal state of mind." Turning to the body, Blake said in a dubious tone, "I don't know how you expect us to clean this up though. And we certainly can't just leave it for later, someone is going to end up smelling it before we get back and peeking in."

Weiss cursed the old fashioned dorm buildings for the umpteenth time since their arrival. Not having any locks on the dorm rooms was _so_ out-dated, and even though crimes were literally non-existent in Beacon there was still something to be said for the privacy that locks provide.

"Well, we can move it into the bathroom for now at least, and clean up the blood…" Weiss trailed off as she realized it would be impossible to clean up the blood easily or quickly. There was a _very_ large amount pooled on the floor, and it was splashed up fairly far on the wall the pile was against, going nearly two meters up and a meter to each side. The sudden thought that Ruby would have needed to be swinging _very_ violently to spread it so much caused Weiss to shudder yet again.

For now though, she would focus on the task at hand. _Worry about those other things later. _With this thought, Weiss drew two glyphs in the air, both blue and meant to force objects away. Similar to, but much simpler than, the one she had seen in the tunnel. Nodding towards the bathroom door, she asked, "Would you open that?"

Blake complied, then stood back and watched with sick fascination as Weiss shoved the pile of flesh through the door with the wards. After initial contact, the stiffening pile of flesh had mostly fallen apart, and she was basically pushing it along as if her glyphs were snow shovels, working together to move a section of snow. Instead of white powder, though, it was slimy red flesh.

Once the flesh was in the other room, Weiss looked at the bloodstains covering the room. She shook her head at the mess the bedroom was in; Yang's bed, sliced in two by Ruby, still lay in the middle of the room, Blake's bed had a broken post, and there was blood absolutely everywhere. An entire quarter of the room had slashes or trails of the liquid tarnishing it, and the splashes had all already dried in place, ensuring cleaning would be difficult to do, especially without anyone else seeing.

Blake nodded to Ruby. "Should we wake her up now? Or would you prefer changing her out of those bloody clothes yourself?"

Blushing furiously, Weiss moved to wake up Ruby without replying to Blake.

* * *

Yang lay in her bed, humming cheerfully. It made her chest hurt to do so, but she didn't let that bother her. She was simply relieved from what Blake had told her; neither Weiss nor Ruby had been injured. Apparently Weiss had been about to collapse with exhaustion, and that made Yang feel a bit bad, but she was still ecstatic neither had been hurt. Sure, the fact that she was in a hospital bed was a bit annoying, but it was at least a thousand times better than dealing with someone else being in a hospital bed because of her.

Plus, now she also had scars on her belly; matching Blake in the creepiest way possible. Yang just felt envious of the fact that the faunus could hide hers; there was no way Yang could go around with her midriff exposed for at least the next few days. Weeks, if she didn't use aura to speed her healing.

Dreading the idea of changing her outfit after being released, Yang was focusing all of the energy in her aura into healing her scars. A somewhat pointless endeavor, since simply swathing herself in aura would achieve the same effect without the mental concentration, but a measure she took nonetheless.

_Sometimes its more about state of mind than actual results, _Yang thought to herself, grinning as she imagined herself as a philosopher. Besides, focusing on something was better than just laying there.

Her mental drive was broken abruptly as the door flew open, Blake striding in quickly. Ruby and Weiss followed close behind, and Blake closed the door immediately behind them, snapping it shut in as little time as she could manage.

The atmosphere had taken a dive for the worse, that was for sure, but Yang couldn't tell why. Ruby was clutching her dress, Weiss was standing off to one side tapping her foot looking frustrated, and Blake was making her way to Yang's side.

"So, hey guys!" No response. Deciding to try again, she kept her cheerful tone as she asked, "What's up? Ruby? Weiss? Something the matter?"

Blake was sitting by Yang now, and she turned to Yang to quietly say, "We need to have a serious talk about everything that's happened. As a team, without anyone barging out, _and without anyone leaving gaps in the story._" This last line was directed to Ruby, and in a poisonous tone Yang had never heard Blake use before.

"Hey, easy Blake. Whatever happened, I'm sure we can work it out! We're a team, so don't get too angry too quickly." Yang's eyes darted back and forth between her partner and her sister; Ruby was looking at her boots, and Blake was still staring accusatory daggers at her.

Weiss cleared her throat after a few moments of silence. "Might I remind you, Blake, that the last time any of us rushed to anger against our teammates it didn't end well for us. It put an undue amount of strain on us as a team, an even though we got past our differences, a lot of the pain could have been avoided if some people hadn't left _gaps_ in what they _told their team."_

_This isn't going well._ Yang opened her mouth to interject, but Blake surprised her by sighing and leaning back in her chair, rubbing her right temple.

"You're right Weiss. I'm not missing your point, so I'll try to calm down. It's just that… It was very stressful to me, what I saw." Blake had evened her tone out by the end, seeming as calm and collected as she ever did.

Ruby mumbled something that Yang couldn't hear, but apparently Blake could, as her bow twitched, and she nodded, saying, "Ruby, I'm glad you're ready to talk to us, but you'll need to speak up for the others to hear you."

Ruby straightened her back, and looked directly at Yang. She looked sick, but she took a deep breath before speaking.

"Yang, last night I killed someone."

Yang's blood froze.

_Ruby committed murder? That's absurd!_

Yet Ruby was the one telling her that. Blake and Weiss looked dead serious as Yang looked between them for some sign that it was a joke. There was no reason for them to joke about murder, and they weren't giving any signs that they were, which meant.. _Ruby killed someone._

Finally forced to speak quietly through sheer force of shock, Yang asked in a soft voice, "Who was it? How? Why?"

Ruby was looking at the ground again.

"Answer me Ruby." Yang heard her voice crack as she demanded her little sister to explain why she had taken a human life. Yang had, in her furious moments, occasionally considered crossing that line. But she never had, and always feared that one day she would. She had also never even considered the possibility of Ruby taking a life. It was absurd to even think about, to consider.

Ruby was looking at her again. "It was an assassin. The same one who attacked Blake. I don't know for sure how I know, I just do, for sure. I could feel that it was the same guy from the last time. I killed him by… By splitting his skull open with Crescent Rose. Then I… I don't remember it, but I completely…"

Ruby's voice was trembling violently as she struggled to grasp words. Finally she managed to blurt out, "I completely eviscerated him." She backed up and fell into a chair by the wall. "There was nothing left of him but red meat and white chunks of bone." She was clutching her head against her knees now. "And the worst part is… Is that I don't know _why._ I didn't even _want to do it."_

She was crying. She started to sob, taking in huge gulps of air. Blake looked pained now, her composure broken not out of anger but sympathy, and Weiss looked like she wanted to comfort Ruby but was holding herself back. Yang secretly wished Weiss would comfort Ruby, but didn't tell the white dressed girl to do so.

Instead she cleared her throat and said, "Ruby, come here."

For a moment it seemed Ruby wouldn't do it. Then she gradually removed her arms from her head, and sat up straight.

Her face was stained with her tears.

Pushing herself to her feet, she made her way, shakily, to Yang's bed. Standing on the opposite side from Blake, Ruby looked like she expected to be hit. Her hands were squeezing each other, pulled in towards herself with her shoulders slumped. Her gaze was no longer locked on the floor, but her head was still down.

Yang pulled her little sister into a fierce hug. She accidentally unhooked her IV in the process, but couldn't care less about that. She didn't care about what Ruby had done either; her little sister had said herself that she didn't know why she did it, that she didn't want to do it. Between that and the fact that she had killed the sick fuck who hurt Blake, Yang had already completely forgiven Ruby.

"Shh. Shh. It's going to fine. You can lean on me, Ruby. We support each other, we always have." Ruby slowly returned the hug, clutching weakly to Yang's shoulders. They remained this way for nearly a minute in silence, Yang feeling Ruby's tears silently forth as her slender body shook in pain.

Yang broke the hug first, unable to keep herself upright any longer. No matter how incredible a job they had done, which Yang didn't doubt it was incredible, it still hurt like hell to use her stomach for anything.

As she fell back onto the bed though, she caught Ruby's right hand with her own left. She was determined to make sure her sister didn't feel alone.

Blake said softly, "Ruby, there's something you need to tell us, isn't there? Something's obviously wrong, and we want to know what."

Weiss added, her tone even and stronger than Blake's, "We want to help, Ruby. We're a team, and you're our captain. Your burdens are our burdens as well."

Ruby nodded. She looked happy now, her cheeks were still stained with tears but she seemed supported by and relieved by the fact that she wasn't without help.

Yang then remembered, finally, what Junior had said.

Quietly, she asked Ruby, "So, what is it? What's up, Ruby?"

Ruby took a moment to reply, seeming deep in thought. When she finally replied, she sounded the clearest Yang had heard her speak so far that night.

"To be honest, I don't know. I really don't. All I know is that the guy who hurt you, Yang, had solid gray eyes, and was incredibly strong. But when I realized it was up to me to protect Weiss while she was treating you, I just felt like all my fear fell away, and I filled up with energy. And I was able to beat him back, keep him away. I was unbelievable, thinking back on it now, I don't even know how I was able to _think_ that fast, much less react so quickly."

Ruby paused, her voice faltering. "He talked a lot. I don't remember most of what he said, but he said I was a coward a few times, and that I didn't understand what I am. Then, he threw me a metal piece he took off of his outfit. When I looked into it, I saw that my eyes were solid white, and I fainted." Ruby's voice trailed off to a whisper as she described her eyes. She seemed on the verge of shaking again, and Yang gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, earning a grateful smile from Ruby.

Taking another deep breath, Ruby continued. "When I woke up, I still had the eyes at first even though I didn't realize it. I was looking around for you, Yang, and Weiss. I was tearing our room up, and it was only when I saw my eyes in the mirror that I started to remember everything. As soon as I saw the white eyes, my own eyes faded back in, and I felt like all the energy I had was just drained out of me."

Raising her now silver eyes to look into Yang's lilac eyes, Ruby continued, "After that, I found this room, where they were getting ready to treat you. After we left, Weiss and I went straight to the dorms, and on the way she told me about how it was most likely we would be attacked again. So we set up a plan that involved me fighting the assassin… But as soon as I realized Weiss was in danger, my mind just went blank. After that, all I remember is hearing Weiss say to get the lights and beat him… Nothing else. I don't even remember killing him, much less maiming him. You have to believe me!" Her voice frantic as she reached the end, desperate for reassurance.

Yang thought about what she had been told. An experiment… An experiment by the Syndicate had done this. _They_ were to blame, not her sister.

Yang nodded, "I believe you. I really do, sis." Blake murmured her assent, willing to believe it as well.

Weiss cleared her throat and added, "When I told you to beat him, the last thing I remember before falling asleep was you asking if it was an order to kill. You sounded like a robot, but I couldn't imagine why at the time. I suppose now I understand that you weren't really yourself." Weiss smiled for the first time since entering the room, a look of obvious relief on her face. "Ruby, I believe you aren't a murderer."

Ruby looked over whelmed. She leaned down to hug Yang again, who was grateful that she could return this one without sitting up. Choked sounding, she said, "Thank you all. So much. I'm so confused and I'm so scared of what's wrong with me. But with you three, I feel like it might all turn out alright."

Blake stood to pat Ruby on the shoulder, only to freeze as her ears swiveled to the door under her bow. "There's someone coming… two people coming, and _fast."_

Within a moment, all of them could hear the approaching voices. One was a voice none of them recognized, and the other was clearly a frantic Professor Ozpin.

"… IF YOU GO IN THERE-" Ozpin was now yelling at whoever he was chasing after. The source of his frustration was revealed to the four as the door was smashed open. A hulking man in black armor, with a bronze sigil of a blazing eye on the breastplate, sprinted in through the door he had smashed apart with his kick.

Before any of them could react, he had pulled Ruby away from Yang. Grabbing her head, he proceeded to slam her head once against the wall, once, hard. Ruby activated her aura in time to avoid serious damage, but was still evidently knocked unconscious by the massive amount of blunt trauma her flesh was subjected to.

Chaos erupted, or at least it would have if the man didn't immediately take measures to stop it. Blake and Weiss both immediately flew at him, and each were repelled by a single palm blow to the chest, knocking the wind out of them and sending them flying backwards into the opposite wall.

As he turned to leave through the ruined door, Yang tried to sit up again, gasping as her torso protested with a scream. She still managed to force out at a speaking volume, "_What the fuck do you think you're doing with my little sister?"_

The man glanced over his shoulder, and said, "This room was wire tapped by my order, Miss Xiao Long. Your sister is a threat to the Kingdom of Vale, and I'm taking her into custody. Extreme force was authorized."

With that, the man stepped out of the room, and walked past a furious looking Ozpin, who did not try to stop him at this point.

Yang felt hot tears fill up her eyes as she realized she had just had the most important person in her life ripped away in less than ten seconds in a whirlwind of violence, by someone she didn't know, for reasons she couldn't understand.

Her sister was gone.

* * *

**I hope none of you saw the ending coming, it was supposed to be a surprise. As usual, please follow/review if you liked it, and PM me any questions.**

**Also, sorry for this chapter not coming out earlier. School work got pretty heavy for a few days. Will be strictly shooting for one chapter a day moving forward!**


	10. Chapter 10

Ruby was awakened by the feeling of her skin burning. Feeling that her left arm was being seared with something, she tried to jerk up, to scream, to get away.

Her attempts all failed, however, leading her to the realization that she was bound to a table, gagged, naked, and blindfolded. She felt terror surge forth in her chest, her heart beating wildly, as she felt the despair that is total helplessness.

She felt utterly powerless, something she hadn't felt in a long time. She had trained so hard, for so long… Yet lately, it seemed like everything outclassed her. Since she was only a fifteen year old girl, she supposed it shouldn't surprise her that she wasn't near the top yet. But it was still frustrating, no matter what logic may say.

What was more frustrating though, was remembering that she could challenge someone several times stronger than herself… So long as her eyes changed, and she became a different person.

The power was neither something she understood or could control. But she didn't want to, in fact she wished she didn't have it. What good was it if she couldn't even use it now, when she was in such enormous danger?

Ruby shoved all these thoughts aside and forced herself to calm down. It was a slow process, and her left arm was still being burned by something incredibly hot, but she tried to ignore it. Taking steady breaths, she felt her heart gradually slow its frantic beat.

As her head cleared, Ruby considered what she knew. In all likelihood she had been taken because of her power, that was obvious. Since Ozpin hadn't been straight out attacking whoever had taken her, she could also assume the people who currently held her were part of the legal government. Which meant they probably viewed her as an experiment of the enemy, the enemy being the group Yang had known about… An enormous threat, in other words.

As she reached this conclusion, the brand was finally removed from her arm. She heard someone move away, a door open, and close behind them. She seemed to be alone in the room again, so, rather than try to force her bonds to break, she began carefully testing what she could move, and if there were any weak points. As far as she could tell, there were four metal cables running across her body. One ran across her breasts, one was pressing on her stomach, one went across her thighs, and the final strap was forcing her ankles to be pinned against the cold metal table. There were three additional straps that didn't run across her body; instead, two tightly held her hands down by pressing on her wrists, while one ran across the base of her neck. This final bond was the loosest, probably to avoid inhibiting her breathing too much, but it was still cutting into her skin, so it wasn't really a weak point.

As she tried to figure out a way to loosen and escape her bindings, a feminine voice suddenly spoke, causing her to freeze. "There's no point, you can't escape those cables. They're titanium, so you don't stand a chance of breaking them. Even if you manage to slip out of them somehow, I'm here, and there are four more guards outside the door. We're all armed, and you aren't."

Ruby relaxed, letting herself be pressed flat against the table by the cold snakes of metal wire. She hadn't given up on the idea of escape, but for now it seemed pointless to struggle, not with a guard literally watching her every movement.

"That's a good girl. Keep behaving well and I might request to take off your gag, and let you see again." The woman standing guard didn't sound malicious, so Ruby was thankful for that. Whatever they had done to her arm still burned horribly, so she was grateful to know the chances of her guard abusing her were minimal.

She still shivered from how terribly cold it was though. Having any clothing would be nice, anything to keep the cold of the metal away from her skin, even a little bit.

A few minutes passed, Ruby staring with open eyes into pitch darkness. She couldn't see a single shred of light through whatever material was wrapped around her eyes, as it was in a single band rather than covering her whole head, but it was either thickly layered or not any form of cloth. It wasn't pinching her skin though, so it was probably safe to say it wasn't any form of metal, plastic, or wood.

The most uncomfortable thing though, other than her arm's burn, was definitely the gag. Nothing had been shoved in her mouth, but it pressed against her lips with a great deal of force, nearly forcing them to split and bleed in several places. The pressure was actually keeping her lips in place; she couldn't open her mouth at all. In addition, there was something that felt like cloth wrapped tightly around her neck, squeezing just hard enough to make breathing more labored, without squeezing so hard that she had to focus on the act. If she had to guess, the bands were all tightly secured to ensure any glyphs on them had full effect on her, probably meant to keep her completely silent.

Several more minutes passed, and Ruby felt incredibly bored. The searing pain on her arm had gradually faded to a dull, throbbing, burn, and she had very little to occupy her mind once she had shoved that thought out. She tried to think about her team at Beacon, but ultimately felt more and more depressed as she realized she had lost that life unless she broke out… And that even if she did, she would be a criminal who wouldn't be allowed to attend Beacon.

As her thoughts became more and more grave, she was gladdened by the first noise she heard in the eerie silence. That noise was the sound of approaching footsteps echoing in what sounded like a tunnel outside of the door. As the footsteps drew closer, she heard what sounded like heels clicking together. Guards snapping to attention? It seemed the female guard in the room with her hadn't been lying about their being more outside the room.

The door entered, footsteps entering. The female guard's voice rang out an acknowledgement, "Sir!"

"At ease, please." The voice was male, but not very deep. It sounded somewhat thin and shaky as well, as though it's owner wasn't used to being in command.

"Sir." Ruby though she could hear the woman lean against the wall.

"So, Ruby Rose. If you're awake, just tap with your left index finger twice."

Ruby complied, deciding it was best to let her captor say whatever it was he wished to say. He couldn't possibly reduce the amount of knowledge she already had, after all.

"Good, good. Willing to cooperate, I see. That's very, very, good." Some of the unease seemed to fall away from his voice as he repeated words, seeming comforted by the routine sounding action.

_Who is this guy?_ Ruby couldn't think of anyone who would be in charge of guarding a dangerous criminal who would sound so on edge in the middle of his own facility.

"Well now, it would be rather difficult to question you in your current state, so… Shall we remove the gag?" He was asking the guard, as if she were the one in charge.

"If you wish to, of course we will."

Ruby felt hands prying at the cloth on her neck, peeling it up on the side of her neck. After a moment the tension released, and she found herself able to breath easily more easily. The cable on her neck actually restricted very little, it was only pressing into her skin and causing discomfort. A moment later the binding on her mouth came off as well, her lips filling up with blood as the pressure was released.

Ruby worked her jaw for a moment, opening and closing her mouth, the sore muscles that had been held in place for a long period of time relieved to be stretched out a bit. Eventually she tried to use her voice.

Her vocal cords vibrations felt oddly strong in her throat, perhaps because they had been utterly silent for so long. But her voice came out softly as she asked, "Hello? Where am I?"

_Straight to the point, try to get info._ The questioner seemed like he probably wasn't actually the person normally in charge of security, or interrogations, so Ruby hoped to get him to slip some answers her way.

Unfortunately, she was met by a good natured chuckle followed by, "I see what you're driving for, but unluckily for you I was already briefed on how not to give information away."

The guard gave an annoyed clucking noise, and Ruby grinned as she realized he had just confirmed that he wasn't used to doing this.

The man seemed to realize this too, as he hastily cleared his throat and continued, "I know it may not seem like it, but we aren't bad people. If you cooperate with us, this won't need to be as unpleasant as it has been, I promise."

"I don't really see why I should believe you, seeing as how you've already… branded me, or something. That doesn't exactly reassure me of your good intentions." Ruby let an accusing note slip into her tone, hoping to offset the hapless man further. She felt a little bad, as she seemed to be more about his wits than he, but she kept in her mind that he was part of whatever organization had taken her, and strengthened her resolve. If she could abuse his good nature, she would.

"Ah… Ahem, pardon that please. It wasn't my order, and it should heal quickly enough. I could, perhaps, see about getting you anesthetics…" The guard interrupted him, clearing her throat loudly.

"I'm afraid we can't give the prisoner anesthetic, as any foreign substances are regulated to prevent an unknown reaction in her system. This, of course, rules out all forms of medication, for pain or otherwise."

"I see. So you have it Ruby, sorry, but there's nothing I can do." He actually sounded apologetic, even though it wasn't even his fault. Ruby found it harder and harder to keep her resolve to try to squeeze info from him; if she did succeed, he would obviously be punished. What sort of person tried to get the only person willing to be nice to them punished?

"So, basically, I was sent here to make sure you understand we aren't actually trying to hurt you. We're just trying to make sure you don't become our enemy, actually." The man sounded nervous again now that he had to try to do what he had been sent to do. Still, that explained why they had sent him; he was a good natured fool. It tends to be harder to hate such people than most others.

"If you're trying to make sure I don't become your enemy, you should have started with not smashing my head into a wall, stripping me, and strapping me to a table. Branding me didn't help either. To be frank, I don't see what possible reason I could have to _not_ think of you all as enemies at the moment." Ruby tried to keep her voice deadpan, to betray as little of her anger as possible. Until now she had been too busy thinking about other things, such as escape, or her old life at Beacon. Thinking now though, Ruby found a burning hatred forming for her captors. No matter what their reasons may be; they were ruining _her_ life, stealing _her_ happiness. It might have been different if she were a criminal, but she knew for a fact that she had been a good citizen all of her life…

Well, until last night. But that had been an assassin anyways, so it shouldn't count! She felt resentment boiling in her chest as she imagined what sort of monsters the people who had ordered her capture had to be.

"Ah… Well, Ruby, I understand you have had a very hard time but, but still… You have to understand that we didn't want to…" The man was choking up slightly, clearly extremely affected from hearing about Ruby's hardships at the hands of the other members of his organization.

Ruby sighed. This wasn't going to be easy on either of them, it seemed.

* * *

Weiss paced about the dorm room, frustrated out of her wits. Sighing, she collapsed onto her bed, only to quickly find that sitting still was worse, getting up, pacing some more, and repeating the process.

Eventually Blake looked up from her book and said, "If you're going to worry so much, just go take your frustrations out in the training rooms. Sparring, dismembering dummies, whatever. Just pacing around and sighing a lot won't make you feel better."

"And as much as exercise might make me feel okay for a short while, it won't ultimately solve anything." Weiss knew it wasn't a very strong retort, and that Blake would probably make her regret not thinking out her reply.

Proving her right, Blake smirked and said, "You say that as if what you're currently doing will."

"Well at least _I'm _actually trying to think of a course of action. We've lost our leader, Ozpin won't tell us anything, and refuses to let us leave Beacon. _What do we do?!_" As soon as Weiss had started talking about her actual worries her pitch had begun rising, making her sound frantic with worry, which was, to be fair, exactly how she felt.

"Perhaps you should think about the immediate future to stop your worrying about what we can't solve at the moment."

"Great. Fantastic. Explain to me what you mean."

"What I mean is that we need to wait for Yang to be healed… _Then_ we can talk about breaking out of Beacon and rescuing Ruby."

Weiss gaped at the faunus. She had thought Blake didn't even care about Ruby being gone, but now it seemed as if _she,_ Weiss, had been the one not thinking. Blake was not only thinking of Ruby, but also of her team. Weiss felt ashamed by her own narrow mindedness.

"I'm sorry Blake. You're right, of course. It doesn't matter what we decide to do without Yang, and it wouldn't be right to decide on the matter without her anyway."

Blake smiled at Weiss and said, "Apology accepted." With that she returned her gaze to her book.

Observing her more closely, Weiss realized how exhausted Blake looked. In the two days since Ruby had been taken, Blake had barely slept. She had been spending nights by Yang's bedside, but since Yang had been slipping in and out of consciousness at random, Blake had often been awoken in the nights by her boisterous partner's enthusiastic greetings.

Yang had also been giving it her all. Dedicating her entire aura on healing, she had been recovering at a remarkable pace. When she had given the estimate of a few days to Weiss she had been skeptical, but it seemed the blonde had neither been kidding nor bragging. Her aura reserves were large, and for the most part the process seemed more taxing on her mind than her aura, hence the inconsistent consciousness.

Weiss felt a bit beaten by the pair. All _she _had done was worry about Ruby. Looking out the window, Weiss wondered for the umpteenth time where her partner was, and if she was okay, and swore to exact vengeance on whoever that man was who had taken Ruby.

Her hypothetical musings about who the kidnapper might be were interrupted by a soft knock on the door.

Striding over, Weiss opened the door without hesitation, causing Jaune to fall forward as he went to knock again.

"Oh! Uh, sorry, hope I'm not disturbing you or anything I just, uh, that is-"

"Jaune. Stop stammering and calm down for a moment before you talk." Blake hadn't gotten up from her bed, and still seemed to be reading, but calmly gave her advice to the scraggly boy. It was probably more helpful than the cold stare Weiss was giving him.

"Oh, uh, right. Right! I wanted to talk to you guys about Ruby!"

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "What do you want? This is a problem for Team RWBY to deal with, and you don't even know what's happened."

Suddenly, the dorm door to Team JNPR's room opened, Pyrrha stepping out and walking over to stand beside Jaune, Nora and Ren following shortly behind.

Staring Weiss in the eye, Pyrrha said, "Ruby isn't only friends with you three. As for not being caught up, I'm sure we can be informed of the situation quickly enough."

Nora, the energetic JNPR version of Ruby, piped up, "Come on Weiss, we want to help!"

"Weiss." Blake put a lot of force into saying her teammate's name, causing Weiss to sigh wearily. There didn't seem to be a way out of this.

Standing aside, she gestured for Team JNPR to enter the RWBY dorm room. As they entered, Jaune looked like he might be sick when he saw the copious amounts of blood still visible. Though the floors and walls had been cleaned by both Weiss and Blake several times, the blood wouldn't seem to come off like normal blood should.

In fact, the dorm room of Team RWBY told a story all on it's own. The window was _still_ broken from the first night the assassin had come, as no replacement windows were in stock at Beacon, and ordering one took a while. The blood was somewhat faded but still clearly visible, randomly splattered around a quarter of the room, a trail leading into the bathroom. Blake's bed still had a broken post, and although they had moved the two halves of Yang's bed next to each other and repaired it as best they could, it now sat awkwardly between where the two bunk beds had previously been, and it wasn't exactly difficult to tell it had been torn in two not long ago.

"So, let's hear the story of how your dorm room came to be such a mess, and why Ruby disappeared. Shall we?" Pyrrha was as direct as ever, to Weiss's annoyance.

Sitting down on her own bed, she gestured for Team JNPR to sit on Yang's bed. Seeing that Blake didn't look like she was going to jump up and begin narrating, Weiss began, "Well, there's a lot we don't understand actually. But what I can tell you…" Weiss trailed off as she realized she didn't know where to start.

Weiss sighed internally with exasperation.

"This is going to be a long story."


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: To the guest who called himself/herself "Adanborn" and told me about my accidentally writing "Team JNPR" as "Team JPTR," thank you so much for letting me know. I feel stupid and could rant about it, but instead promise not to repeat the mistake in the future .**

**I considered not editing it, but decided not to frustrate any future readers with the mistake. Instead I will publicly acknowledge my mistake with this author's note ^^**

* * *

Ruby heard the door open again, startling her because she was still talking to the man with the hesitant voice, and hadn't heard anyone coming. She heard the guard against the wall snap to attention immediately, and bark out harshly, "SIR! Head of Security present!"

"Thank you Ariel, stand at ease. Baurus, stand aside for a bit would you? Don't leave, just wait by the wall with Ariel."

This new man's voice was easily identifiable as that of a commander. It wasn't as deep as the voice of the assassin Ruby fought in the tunnel, but it was strong sounding and didn't waver. He sounded to be very familiar with the act of ordering others around.

"Ruby Rose. You know, when Damascus handed you over to us, he said to 'take care of you.' That means, if you aren't aware, that I have orders to kill you. Thus you might be wondering why you haven't been, and why instead this lovely fellow Baurus here has been talking your ear off. Speaking of, how much did you tell her on accident?" The voice turned away from her as he addressed Baurus.

"Nothing sir! I, uh, accidentally let slip that it was the first time I had ever questioned anyone… but I didn't tell her anything about us!"

"Well done then, I don't particularly care about her knowing you aren't experienced in such matters." The voice seemed to turn back to her as he continued, "Now listen Ruby. There's a reason you're here, that you're not dead. We work for the Kingdom of Vale, but we aren't _technically_ a part of it. That's why we've been able to hide the fact that you're still alive."

"Well, what is it you want with me?" Ruby's heart was pounding with fear now. Everything hinged on whatever the commanding sounding man said next.

"Good question, straight to the point, without fear. You're perfect for our plans, Ruby Rose. I'll reward you by being straight to the point as well; we want to make you into a weapon, working for us. You being a hunter is all well and good, but you would pose a risk to all the Vale because of the chance of you going rampant with your mysterious power. Almost as important, for you specifically fighting the Grimm is a waste. You were born into a shadowy world, you were an experiment to create a weapon for the sake of evil. And when you were still too young to even speak you were saved from it. By who, I cannot say. What matters is that they did everything they could to give you a normal life. They stole you from the Syndicate, and put you into a foster family who raised you well. It seemed as if any experiments done on you as an infant or toddler had been buried under the sands of time. Now, we know that to be wrong."

The voice fell silent. Ruby didn't reply immediately, she was too busy trying to wrap her mind around everything he had said. She had been born in the Syndicate? And rescued from it? Her mysterious eyes were from their experiments?

She recalled some of what that assassin had said to her.

"_You don't know who you are, or what you have."_

Ruby felt sick, her stomach twisting itself into a knot.

"What are you going to do to me?" She despised the tremble in her own voice.

"To make you into a weapon? Why that's simple, Ruby. We're going to train you until you're as fast as the best of the best naturally, and then we're going to learn how to let you control your power so you can beat anyone in the world. Then we're going to trust that our analysis of you is correct, and that you will fight for what is just."

"But… I'm just a teenager. What about Beacon? My team? My friends?" Ruby felt, and sounded, like she was on the verge of tears. As much as she wanted to hide her emotions, they were threatening to spill forth at any moment.

"Shh, shh shh shh. I understand, it's difficult. Unfortunately, letting you live out your life in Beacon would have been too dangerous, or so the government thinks. What you need to understand, Ruby, is that you and I are both being forced into this. If I had control over your situation, I _would_ let you go through Beacon, although I would of course have you watched over by some of my own agents. Going through Beacon would get you closer to where we need you to be, and taking you out of it in this manner is doubtlessly causing emotional and mental duress that I would prefer for you to avoid. The damage is bad for you, obviously, and bad for us because we suspect mental state has a large effect over your power. Controlling it is only complicated by hurting you."

"Who… Who _are_ you people? You work for the government? But you're going behind their backs by keeping me alive?"

"You _were_ trying to become a huntress. Now, if you work with us, you're going to try to become a hound."

* * *

Yang sat up. Her stomach didn't cramp or complain at all. Lifting up her patient's gown, Yang grinned to see that her skin wasn't discolored from the bruise in the slightest, and all there was left of her surgical incisions where pale white lines. They would be difficult for anyone to spot, and should be gone completely in a couple days as well if she kept her aura up.

Humming a little, she finally unhooked her IV for the last time as she climbed out of bed. The nurses had been mostly leaving her alone since she accidentally punched one when the nurse woke her up changing the IV bags. She had been having a nightmare, and felt it was fairly understandable that she had lashed out, but the nursing staff obviously thought otherwise. They wouldn't miss having her around, she was certain of that.

Stripping off her patient's gown, she opened the clothes cabinet in the corner of the room and quickly changed into her own outfit, glad to have it back on after so long. At least her injuries hadn't damaged her clothes, or her hair for that matter.

Stepping out of her room, she glanced around. It was still before noon, and Blake had left for food shortly earlier. Yang felt guilty for sneaking out while Blake was gone, but she needed to get away from the faunus for a bit. Not because she was tired of Blake's company, but because she didn't want anyone else to know about the conversation she was on her way to have.

Running at a moderate pace, still taking it a bit easy but not slacking, she quickly exited the medical wing. From there, she took the long route around the grounds to reach the main building for classes, intending to avoid going near the cafeteria.

There were three buildings for classes, and the largest one contained Ozpin's office. Technically, this wasn't knowledge Yang was supposed to know, but she had seen him disappearing up a staircase one day and wondered where he was going. It hadn't been easy to follow him without being noticed; she had stayed a far ways behind him, relying on her hearing to follow his faint footsteps. Ultimately, she didn't know _exactly_ where he had disappeared, as she hadn't seen him, but she knew a general area to look around in.

Upon entering the building, she immediately made her way to a side staircase. Unlike most stairs in Beacon, which were wide and gradual, this one was made specifically to quickly go between floors. It was a small spiral staircase and very steep, so not many people used it. Perfect for avoiding potential run-ins with people who would slow her down.

After a minute of all-out running, Yang reached the top floor that the spiral staircase went to. It was the top of most of the building; the only extension going farther up was a thin but tall tower set in the middle of the building.

According to what her ears had told her on that day she followed Ozpin, his office was most likely one of the rooms on the top floor of the main building, near the base of the extending tower. She supposed it made sense; he could have a large office here, few people came up here because no classes utilized the rooms this high up, and proximity to the tower let him quickly attain a good view of the entirety of Beacon after only a few moments of sprinting. Or at least it would be a few moments for him, if he was able to keep up with the man who had taken Ruby. For Yang it would have been easily another minute of sprinting up the stairs, if not more.

She paused as she looked around. This final floor had a different layout than the rest; there were only four rooms. The walls wrapped in a corridor around the spiral staircase that was in the middle of the building that went up the tower, and from there four corridors ran to the edges of the buildings. One ended where Yang was, at the spiral staircase which ran to the ground floor. The other three ended in dead ends. They created four perfectly partitioned rectangular rooms, all the exact same size.

Technically speaking, figuring out which was Ozpin's office was easy. Just barge into all four rooms, and one of them would inevitably be the room she was looking for. The problem was she wasn't sure she was allowed into any of these rooms, and it could be potentially dangerous if she went into the wrong room. Ozpin would be annoyed if she got his room right, but he wouldn't hurt her, this was a certainty in Yang's mind.

For the three mystery rooms, she didn't know who or what could be on the other side. Some doors in Beacon had warning signs to students about them having protective glyphs that could injure students trying to open them, but Yang was afraid these unmarked rooms could have similar protection and not be marked. She had also heard ominous rumors about what things lay behind such doors in Beacon… Although she was _completely _certain that they were unsubstantiated, she still couldn't use her logic to make her caution go away. Survival instinct, perhaps.

Still, there was no way around it. Hesitating in front of a door, her right hand stretched out, Yang could neither bring herself to grab the door handle, nor to leave. This was important. Far too important to walk away from, no matter what her instincts told her.

Taking a breath, she seized the door handle. Nothing happened, no wards went off.

"Having fun worrying, Miss Xiao Long?"

Whipping her hand off the handle, she spun around as fast as she could, tucking her hands behind her in what she hoped was an innocent matter.

"Why hello, Professor Ozpin!"

Dammit. She had wanted to get the drop on him, but the opposite had happened. What a terrible way to set up her questions.

"What brings you to me on this fine day, immediately after sneaking out of your room, no less?" Ozpin sounded tired, and upon looking closer, Yang realized he had bags under his eyes. He still had his mug of what she presumed was coffee, but for the first time he looked tired enough that he actually needed the caffeine. He was also leaning on a thick black cane a bit, not something she had seen before.

"Oh you know, I was just hoping to get some answers from you… About this girl, specifically." Yang flipped out her tablet and opened the picture of Ruby she had pre-prepared, holding it up for Ozpin to see and giving him her most winning smile.

Ozpin sighed and closed his eyes in what seemed to be a small grimace. Upon reopening his eyes, he stared into Yang's eyes, his light brown eyes searching her lilac ones. A bit unnerved, Yang broke his gaze and looked down at the ground.

Softly, she asked, "There's nothing you can tell me? _Nothing at all?_ My little sister is gone, professor. Stolen from me, from right in front of my eyes while I was helpless!" As she talked she slowly grew louder, her voice gaining strength and an angry edge. She felt her aura twitching to unleash its fury, her eyes beginning to change colors. She breathed deeply several times, trying to tame herself. Blowing up at Ozpin would accomplish nothing.

"You have gained a remarkable amount of self control compared to when you entered my academy, Miss Xiao Long. Unfortunately, I am largely in the dark as to what has happened to Ruby as well. If you would like, I could share what little I do know with you, and hopefully make it clear to you why she was taken. But I won't let you leave Beacon to search aimlessly for her."

Yang looked up, her anger subsiding for the moment. "Please. Anything."

Again, Ozpin stared into her eyes for a moment. This time he didn't hold onto her gaze long enough to make her feel uncomfortable though, instead nodding a little and gesturing for her to enter the room.

Entering, Yang made her way to the closest seat she saw and took it. The room had less in it than she had expected, only one wall of bookcases, a rather magnificent dark mahogany desk, and a few plush chairs. The chair behind the desk was the same as the several facing it.

Sitting down behind the desk, Ozpin set his mug down and put his cane across his lap before starting.

"I know, as I said, very little of where Ruby has been taken. The man who took Ruby is a member of the government of the Kingdom of Vale, and is in fact one of their most valued agents. He doesn't have an official position, but he could best be described as the right hand man of the Secretary of Internal Affairs. If you aren't aware, this department includes the police departments, and as such is in charge of both the internal war against the underground, and also in keeping the strength of the criminal organizations hidden from the general public. He likely took Ruby because she represents a major threat to the kingdom; she has an ability we know next to nothing about, and was originally in the system of experimentation the Syndicate runs on any exceptional individuals they can get their hands on. She has the potential to become a major part of the criminals' fighting power. At the moment, the Syndicate is contained because they don't have the raw power to overthrow the government without causing massive damage to the general populace. If they were to obtain the manpower needed to do such a thing, they wouldn't hesitate to do so."

"Why are they concerned about hurting the public if they're criminals? Them taking over would be harmful enough!"

Ozpin shook his head at Yang's question, smiling slightly, though it was a sad one. "That's not how they operate, and whether it is fortuitous or not that they are intelligent remains to be seen, as for now it gives the government time to prepare to fight. At the moment they could most likely overthrow the kingdom if they tried to, but doing so would lead to national ruin… The reason that they need to avoid damaging the public is simple, just think for a moment. If they destroyed the kingdom in the process of taking it, what would they have? Ruins of what they once had, and in addition they would be vulnerable to the other kingdoms attacking them while they rebuild. Worse still, they would in all likelihood be attacked, as they would be viewed as little more than criminal scum who managed to overthrow the rightful crown."

Ozpin leaned back in his seat, propping one elbow on the arm rest and leaning his cheek bone on his hand. "Of course, this would lead to disaster for them. Not only would they be wiped out, but their kingdom would be as well. When the other kingdoms step in, they would doubtlessly split the land of the former Kingdom of Vale among themselves. This would not only split the territory of any remaining members of the Syndicate, but would put more difficult governments to work under in place. The Kingdom of Vale is currently the only kingdom that has such a prevalent criminal problem, at least to the best of my knowledge. The reason is purely political; the government focuses its efforts more on restraining the Syndicate from becoming even more powerful and hiding their existence than they do on actually eliminating the Syndicate. Essentially, they're on the back foot, desperately defending and unwilling to take risks to gain the upper hand."

Yang sat in silence for a few minutes, mulling over this information. She had realized the Syndicate was powerful when her casual crime fighting had been much more difficult than she had anticipated, but she had never realized it was so big that the kingdom's very existence was in danger because of them.

She sighed. "So, that clears up a lot for me, but you haven't told me anything about _where_ they might have taken my little sister."

Ozpin glared sternly at her, his arms propped up on the desk and his fingers laced in front of him. "First of all, I already told you that you wouldn't be leaving Beacon, so such knowledge would be useless to you unless you intend on resigning as a student of my academy. Secondly, there's nothing you can do, it's far above your ability level to rescue Ruby from whatever her predicament may be."

He sat back again, resting has hands on his lap. "Thirdly, I don't even know. She was taken, and all the agent told me was that she was going to be taken care of." He said this quietly.

Yang's mind worked in slow motion. Whispering, she said, "By 'taken care of'… you can't mean…"

Ozpin looked grim. "That is what he was told. However, there's still good news. That would be, that although her position is _very_ unstable at the moment, she is currently not being executed. I received a message, you see." Ozpin opened one of the drawers of the desk and withdrew a small piece of parchment. Heavy duty, the parchment was folded twice, into fourths. Unfolding it, Ozpin read cleared his throat and read it aloud.

"_Greetings, my old pupil. This is your former instructor and friend, Amius Crowell, writing. I am writing to inform you that Ruby Rose is alive, and in my care. I'm working as part of the Hounds, who are planning on rehabilitating her. I plan on training her hard, and breaking her out. After that her path will be her own, and I'm sure it will be an interesting one to see play out. Much like your own has been. Yours, Amius Crowell."_

Ozpin looked up at Yang, who looked to be in shock.

"Someone else is going to free her?" Yang's voice was shaking with disbelief even as happiness blossomed in her chest. Ruby was alive, and wasn't doomed to a life in custody.

"So he says. He has never lied since I met him, and no one has ever changed his mind of anything. He's a hard man, who's main interest for the past sixty years has been, as he calls is, 'the development of interesting persons.' I've never understood his reasons, but he claims he's going to free her, and I believe him. So I'm asking you, Yang, to wait."

Silence fell between them, both staring at the other. Yang was filled with disbelief, and Ozpin looked as if he were hopeful that she would accept his resolution.

Yang swallowed the knot in her throat.

"I'll wait for now. I'll train, to make myself better able to deal with this myself. But if I don't have Ruby back within a couple of months, I don't know what I might do."

Yang stood and strode out the door, Ozpin watching her go silently. She sprinted down the staircase, burst out of the building into the clean air of Beacon a couple minutes later. From there she sprinted straight out onto the grounds, to the forest. Upon arriving at its edge, she was out of breath. But she didn't care, she kept running into the forest, looking for a fight.

If she couldn't rescue Ruby, she was bound and determined to make herself so strong she could fight those monstrous people she had seen. For now, killing Grimm without using her weapons should be sufficient training.

* * *

"Are you ready, Ruby?"

Ruby nodded.

She gasped slightly as light pierced her eyes, the blindfold falling away from her head onto the table. Blinking blindly, she thought she had never been so troubled by vision, as the room only seemed to have one light, directly over the table, but was very bright. As her vision slowly restored itself, she heard the sounds of the metal bindings being removed from the table. Once they were gone she sat up, blinking as a set of clothes were dropped on the table at her feet.

She couldn't see that it was Ariel, but she recognized her voice as the guard said, "Here, put these on. We're going to chain you up before leaving the room, but you can get dressed before that."

"Thanks. Say, why was I naked in the first place?"

Ariel took a moment, probably shrugging without realizing Ruby was still mostly blind, before saying, "Well, it's standard procedure for anyone handed over to me marked as 'extremely dangerous' to be bound while nude. The goal is to reduce the amount of objects they can touch to as close as zero as possible without using absurd amounts of glyphs."

Ruby took a moment to respond, fumbling a bit as she tried to slip the shirt on first. "Well, I suppose that makes sense, but I'm not exactly dangerous without my sweetheart and without the ability to move."

"Assuming that by sweetheart you mean your weapon… Most people aren't, but some can still be, and procedure is procedure."

Ruby swung her legs off the table and climbed off before turning and pulling on the pants.

It was a very plain outfit; a solid navy blue shirt, slightly baggy and with no sleeves. The light gray pants were also slightly baggy, and ended halfway down her shins. She wasn't given any shoes, or even anything to wrap around her feet. It was an odd outfit for a prisoner, Ruby thought.

Remarking on her opinion, she asked, "Is this also standard wear for any people classified as dangerous? It seems a little easier to move in than I would think the clothes would be."

Her vision mostly back now, Ruby could see Ariel smirk slightly. "You do realize you're complaining about having clothes that are easy to move in, right? At any rate, no, they're not standard. But then, you aren't standard either."

Ruby nodded, understanding. "So, where are we going?"

Baurus spoke for the first time since she had gotten her clothes, having turned his back while she put them on, which struck her as odd since he must have been looking at her naked on the table while she was restrained. "First, the man in charge of training you requested to see you as soon as we were given the clear to take you out of this room. After that, we'll be taking you to your quarters."

"My trainer?" Ruby was surprised; they had said she would be trained, but she hadn't expected it to start so quickly. It seemed they had been more prepared for this eventuality than they had let on.

Ariel nodded. "I need to put these manacles on you while we move around the facility."

Ruby nodded back, acquiescing the necessity. One set of manacles ran between her wrists, and were really little more than heavy duty handcuffs. Her ankles were also chained together, but these manacles were much more heavy duty. Running halfway up her shins, the heavy metal plates cut into the top of her feet as their weight rode down on her skin. One more set was added, running between the chains of these two sets of manacles, ensuring she couldn't raise her arms past a certain point. Carefully testing it as Ariel and Baurus left the room ahead of her, not wanting them to notice her testing her restraints, she discovered she could raise her hands to about stomach level without pulling on the connecting link.

Following Baurus and Ariel, Ruby walked past several guards who snapped to attention as Ariel walked by them. They turned left and went down what turned out to be a tunnel, as Ruby had thought. Solid stone, it was painted white on everything but the ceiling, which was black, creating a decent optical illusion making the ceiling seem higher than it probably was. Lights were set in the left wall every few meters a couple dozen centimeters above Ruby's eye level. They made it easily bright enough to see without difficulty.

After a few minutes they reached a spiral staircase. Going up it, Ruby realized it was probably the center of the facility; it was a spiral staircase, but was wide enough for several people to walk side by side. Countless tunnels were connected, stretching off in different directions at different depths. Eventually, they reached a tunnel that looked the same as any of the others to Ruby, and turned and went down it.

At the first door, set into the right wall, Ariel and Baurus paused. Gesturing for Ruby to come forward, Ariel removed her manacles. Starting with her hands, then the connector, then the leg manacles, Ruby felt significantly more free as the metal clasps and chains fell away, her range of motion restored.

At Baurus's gesture, Ruby entered the room. It turned out to be a very large room, with a low ceiling, and one central light, which was very bright and created a pool of light that just barely didn't reach the walls or corners.

Standing directly under this light was an old man. He was holding a cane with both hands in front of him, its base ending between his feet. He had long, thin, gray hair, a pock-marked face, and one of his eyes had a bad cataract which Ruby doubted he could see through. His other eye had a scar running diagonally over it though, running from his nose down to his cheekbone, and was closed, making Ruby wonder if the man was completely blind.

Despite his decrepit face and cane though, his body was well muscled. His legs were slightly bent at the knees, and he was standing on the balls of his feet; ready to move at a moment's notice. His arms were thick but not bulging with muscles. His back was straight; he wasn't leaning on the cane in the slightest.

He was, Ruby thought, the oddest looking trainer she had ever seen.

He smiled widely at her as she entered the light, revealing well cared for teeth; straight, white, and oddly sharp looking, as if he had purposefully tried to make them look so.

He spoke, his voice somewhat quiet and scratchy, but deep and resonant.

"Hello Rose, I'm Amius Crowell. But, you can call me the-meanest son-of-a-bitch-who-ever-worked-you-ragged, if you like. Good to meet you."

* * *

**That was that chapter, hope it was enjoyable. Sorry that I'm really not keeping a good schedule, but exams and whatnot. Also, I figure quality is more important than rushing it out. Doing my best, will continue to do so in the future.**

**As always, please follow/favorite if you liked, review with any problems, or PM me questions! Thanks guys! ^^**


	12. Chapter 12

"So, Rose, why not show me your speed?"

Ruby blinked. "Sorry? You mean just run around?"

The man nodded. "Try to move quickly enough to escape my gaze. If you fail to move quickly enough, you lose. And if you lose, you're punished."

Ruby hesitated, thinking that it was the oddest request, and threat, she had ever received in her life.

Shrugging her confusion off, she activated her aura. Using her semblance, she dashed around him, her movements and thought processes accelerated to beyond human speeds. Going in a circle, she left a semicircle of rose petals around the edge of the pool of light, pausing directly behind him.

As she was about to cut off her semblance to preserve her energy, she heard him say, "You lose."

Something whistled through the air, and she moved to dodge it, but even with her semblance active she couldn't dodge the incoming projectile.

Something slammed into her left leg. Her focus shattered, she dropped her semblance and collapsed to the ground, cradling her shin. Whatever the old man had attacked her with, it had smashed straight through her aura and destroyed her bones; she could feel countless cracks running throughout both of the bones in her lower left leg, and every moment she received a new wave of reports from her nerves informing her that she should be screaming in agony.

Gritting her teeth, feeling tears streaming out of her eyes, she refused to cry out. Slowly, she gathered herself enough to look up at the old man.

He was still staring at her, a strange expression on his face. Softly, he said, "Your mother Rose always refused to break as well. You have a good shot at survival, young Rose."

Ruby was in too much pain too reply, or to even think his words through quickly. Her left leg's current injury was the most painful thing she had ever experienced; more painful than the headaches from the eyes, more painful than any injuries the assassin had given her, and more painful than even the brand which she could still feel on her left arm. Getting knocked around by Grimm who couldn't smash her aura, or taking a hit in combat training, didn't even compare to these latest pains, least of all _this_ one.

What had he called himself? Ah yes, Ruby remembered now. She slowly said, forcing her voice to be level, "You'll never break me, Crowell."

She then passed out, the sound of his mirthful laughter ringing in her ears as her consciousness escaped her.

* * *

Weiss leveled her rapier and, stepping forward, jabbed quickly and precisely through three floating glyphs. Turning, she stabbed through two more on her right before twirling one-hundred and eighty degrees to thrust Myrtenaster through four more glyphs. Turning to her left, she repelled two mock attack glyphs before dispatching each with one shallow poke each. As the final part of her exercise, she dispatched three ranged glyphs; one burst of blue dust flew from her blade, tightly weaving between all three targets.

She lowered her weapon as the announcer read out, "Floor time, three point two nine seconds, exercise four-three-nine with standard student protocols engaged. New personal records in time, efficiency, and accuracy. Personal improvement, two percent time, point three percent efficiency, point one percent accuracy, zero percent power."

Weiss cursed. This was going far too slowly; she still hadn't even dropped below three seconds on any of the more difficult exercises, and her efficiency and accuracy improvements were dead in the water. Power ratings she didn't particularly care about for her own fighting style.

Walking over to the exercise selection panel, Weiss hesitated a moment. She wasn't sure her idea on how to improve faster was a good one. Furrowing her brow, she steeled her resolve and began hacking the terminal. After a couple minutes of bypassing passwords, which were thankfully not difficult as students hacking them most likely hadn't been considered during their encryption, she managed to open the command console of the selection menu. She then turned off all safety protocols, allowed live attacks, doubled all glyphs, and increased all exercises speed ratings by four hundred percent. They were now even more deadly than the standard protocols for staff members, which were much more difficult than student protocols.

Satisfied with her changes, Weiss selected what had previously been an exercise too easy to bother selecting, and walked to the middle of the open floor. The moment the announcer read, "Exercise commencing," four glyphs appeared and began swirling around at speeds too fast for Weiss to track.

Two immediately began releasing vicious bursts of energy at Weiss, who had to react as quickly as she possibly could to avoid being hurt, drawing up her own defensive glyphs with impeccable speed. If any of the glyph's energy attacks landed on her with her aura down, they would burn through her flesh like paper, doubtlessly killing her.

With two jabs she removed two of the opposing glyphs, before feeling her aura being damaged from her backside. Swirling, she immediately thrust with her rapier, slamming through the offending glyph before it could burn her aura out completely; sometimes the best defense was a good offense. She easily broke the last glyph, which hadn't been one of the attacking ones, with a single, dramatic, lunge.

Despite panting and sweating from the absurd amount of exertion and aura loss she had gone through to avoid death, Weiss smiled as the results were read.

"Floor time, two point oh five seconds. Exercise one, custom protocols engaged. New records in time, efficiency, accuracy, and power. No personal improvement available, as this is your first time completing this exercise with set custom protocols."

This should be good training for a while.

* * *

Blake breathed deeply. She was currently perched on a rock jutting out of the side of a cliff, eight hundred meters above the forest floor below her. Multiple Nevermores were flying through the air nearby, screeching loudly at her. Rain beat down around her and onto her, but her aura kept her warm in spite of the freezing water coating her.

There were four Nevermores, all vying for the right to eat Blake. Unfortunately for the large Grimm, Blake didn't intend to be eaten. She had been meditating until they arrived, her keen senses primed to detect any strong Grimm in the forest, hoping the rain would bring out Nevermores… Luckily, it had. Now that they were here, she drew Gambol Shroud, pulling the ribbon, connected to her arm and trigger, off of the trigger, and tightly gripping the hook she had attached to the end in her left hand.

Leaping off the cliff, Blake threw the hook out from herself directly towards a Nevermore. Successfully hooking onto one of its massive black feathers, Blake tightened her grip on the ribbon, feeling her shoulder almost wrench out of its socket as the ribbon reached its maximum length, only stretching slightly under her body weight.

Swinging in an arc, Blake waited until she was almost level with the four Nevermores, who were flying in a circle, before summoning shadow clones beneath her feet and using them to leap along the ribbon's length until she was on the Nevermore. Once there, she sprinted up the length of it's spine, pulling her hook free and rewinding her ribbon around her arm as she did so.

Freeing her blade of its sheathe, she slashed furiously with both as she ran. The Nevermore had feathers as tough as steel, but was still somewhat young and as such had no bone plating. Blake was able to cut through to its flesh, the shallow cuts letting out small sprays of blood that flew into the air as the Nevermore screeched and began dropping altitude in an effort to remove her.

Determined to stay on, Blake re-sheathed Gambol Shroud and quickly twirled her ribbon off her forearm again, flinging it around the Nevermore's neck and catching the hook as it came back around with her left hand. She then pulled it taut and began advancing toward the head, pulling more and more ribbon through her hand to keep it taut. As she went she continued to leave a trail of vicious gashes in the Nevermore behind her, continuing to injure the young Grimm.

When she reached the neck, she dropped down and straddled its neck tightly with her legs. She let go of her ribbon, it immediately whipping off above her as they were still plummeting through the air, tugging on her arm but not coming free of its wrapping.

At this very moment, the Nevermore decided it didn't want to drop any lower, as they were only a hundred meters above the tree tops. Flaring out its wings, Blake let out a whoosh of air as the breath was crushed from her when she slammed into the Nevermore's neck. At the same time, she felt the hook from her own ribbon fall into her left arm, piercing the skin and digging into the muscle. She didn't release the pressure from her legs though, and was not successfully removed.

Looking up, she was pleased to see the other three Nevermore where all still circling several hundred meters above. Fighting multiple at once would have necessitated immediate retreat. At least this way she might be able to kill them a couple before leaving.

She quickly removed the hook from her arm, then wrapped the ribbon around the wound it had caused, stemming the bleeding as her aura began healing it over. The muscle tears wouldn't heal quickly, but she could force enough aura through her arm to make up for it for now.

She unsheathed Gambol Shroud and leaned forward until she was pressing her torso against the top of its head. She then began slashing at all the eyes in her reach, smiling with wicked satisfaction as her blades easily slashed through the solid orbs which would have once been incredibly difficult for her to pierce. The Nevermore let out another enormous screech as its vision was cut away, great streams of blood flying into the air. Unfortunately for Blake, they streamed directly onto her.

As one stream struck her in the face, she was momentarily blinded, and upon re-opening her eyes, she discovered they were heading directly at the cliff, and angling downward. The Nevermore was planning to _squish_ her against the rocks?

Leaving a shadow clone in her place, Blake nimbly jumped off of the Nevermore, firing her gun twice to propel her towards the cliff, then at an angle downwards and towards the cliff to slow her approach. Whipping off the sheath, she shoved the katana blade into the rock as she collided with it. Her entire skeleton seemed to be jarred from the impact, and rattled a bit, but nothing broke, thankfully her aura still being strong enough to protect her from most of the collision's force.

Blake was breathing heavily, and looked down just in time to see the Nevermore smash into the cliff below her, Blake's clone tricking the Grimm into thinking she was still on it. Disoriented, the monster spiraled down into the tree tops, landing on the forest floor with an enormous _WHOOSH._

Blake stabbed her sheath into the cliff, with drew her katana, then jammed it into the rock below her. Using her blades in a similar fashion to how mountain climbers would use ice picks, just in reverse, she slowly and carefully descended two hundred meters of sheer cliff side.

Upon reaching the forest floor, she made her way to the Nevermore's crash site. Upon reaching it, she promptly cut open the throat of the unconscious beast, mercilessly hacking away until more blood was flowing from its neck than Blake had ever seen in her life, forming such a large circle around the corpse that one could be fooled into thinking it was a swimming pool.

Glancing up, Blake was disappointed to see the other Nevermores were all gone. Beginning her trudge back to Beacon, Blake felt adrenaline pumping through her as she wondered if her teammates were each being similarly successful in their training.

* * *

Yang grunted as she shoved up. Benching four hundred kilograms was a significant challenge; she was proud of both her muscles and her aura, but she hadn't actually bulked up her muscles enough to make this much weight easy.

It was two fold training, as she focused on pumping as much aura into her arms as possible, thus improving her ability to use aura precisely and increased her overall aura abilities. Simultaneously, she could feel her muscles tearing and healing under her aura's influence, leading to quick gains in muscle strength. Though it was, as much as Yang hated to admit it, _extremely_ painful.

Thirty one… Thirty two… Thirty three-

Yang's aura flickered slightly in her right arm, her muscles immediately screeching as they snapped and her arm buckled, her bones desperately trying not to break as the twisted under the colossal weight shoving down on them.

Panicking, Yang immediately focused on surging her aura into her arm, managing to stop the weight from landing on her chest, which would have landed her back in the hospital bed, no matter how much aura she shielded herself with.

She held the weight just off her chest, unable to shove it back up with her torn muscles, but unable to shove it to the side either. She wondered for a moment what to do, when abruptly the weight started to come off her.

Yang's eyes, previously closed in concentration, flew open in surprise; she was sure she had been the only one in this room. She felt much less surprised upon realizing the person helping her was Jaune Arc, the lanky young man surging as much of his white aura through his upper body as he could while he helped lift the weight up. Together, they struggled to put the bar down on the stand above the bench Yang lay on, where the bar was supposed be held when not in use.

As soon as it was in place, Yang sat up and began breathing deeply, her burning lungs glad for the respite. She gingerly began feeling her right arm where she though Jaune couldn't see; she wouldn't be using it again tonight, but none of the bones had broken, so she should be able to mostly heal it up overnight. Standing, she turned to Jaune, surprised to find him calmly watching her.

"You arm okay? Don't, don't answer. I'm sure you'll say it's fine." Jaune took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair.

"Hey Jaune, come on, don't be so uptight! I just went overboard this time, which by the way, thanks for the help! But in the future, you should try not to put so much strain on your back!" Yang tried to give her best winning grin with this reassurance, trying to come off as funny with the second remark.

Jaune still just looked at her coolly. He was definitely acting unlike his normal self.

"My team and I are worried, Yang. You guys are going crazy with your training, you're going to end up killing yourselves. We're trying to get stronger too, but you guys are trying to race ahead, and putting yourselves in risk."

Yang deflated as she recognized that he was acting the puppet for Pyrrha's concerns. It would be hard to make him back down, and she guessed Weiss and Blake were being given similar talks by the other members of Team JNPR.

She took on a hard face, her eyes losing their normal cheerfulness. "How would you feel if Pyrrha was taken? By someone so incredibly powerful you couldn't even dream of challenging them as you are?"

She said this in a soft voice, but Jaune flinched as if she had struck him. He always had been easily affected by others.

Walking past him, Yang left the training room and made her way to the girls' locker room, where she showered her sweat off. Changing into her regular clothes, tenderly avoiding using her right arm as much as possible, she proceeded to make her way back to the dorm room. Doubtlessly Team RWBY would need to talk tonight.

* * *

Weiss and Yang sat in the room in silence. Weiss had arrived a couple minutes before Yang, and it had been a few minutes since then. Both had cleaned themselves off after their work outs, but both could tell the other was utterly exhausted. So, rather than waste energy talking, they waited.

After about twenty minutes, they finally heard someone approaching the room. The door swung open slowly as Blake staggered in. Yang immediately got to her feet and helped her teammate keep her balance, as Blake was swaying badly.

Blake looked a mess; her arm had a visible puncture wound, she was completely covered in blood, though it was too much to be her own, and her flickering aura was clearly the main factor in her walking around. Her own body was doubtlessly exhausted.

"Do you need medical treatment?" Weiss felt concerned; it was the first time any of them had been in such a bad shape after returning from the forest.

Blake shook her head. "Just… A shower, and a change of clothes. Then we can talk."

Yang helped Blake to the bathroom door, then retreated and fetched a clean set of clothes for Blake, handing them to the faunus before Blake stepped in and closed the door behind her.

Yang jumped back up into her bed, and they returned to silence, the only sound being the pounding of the water from Blake's shower. While they waited, Weiss pondered their current setup.

At the moment, two of them went to the training rooms every night, while one went into the Emerald Forest. They all trusted each other not to die in the forest, and having all of them out in the forest at once would be too difficult to hide from the professors. Really, the only good thing about Ruby being taken was that the sentinels which had briefly adorned the campus all disappeared as well. It would have been impossible otherwise.

Now, though, Weiss had second thoughts. Blake wasn't in danger of dying, but she was badly beaten up. It was understandable, since it was pouring rain; the rain made the terrain more difficult to navigate, as much of the forest floor turned to mud, and the cliffs became too slippery to hold onto with bare hands. That combined with the fact that rain was commonly known to rile up Nevermores, and Weiss had a good guess as to how Blake had come by her injuries.

Despite the fact that Blake had ultimately been fine, she had likely been a hairs breadth from disaster tonight. If she had run into an powerful Ursa or Death-stalker in the state she was in now… Weiss shuddered at the thought.

After a while, Blake came out and sat on her own bed, neatly dressed in her pajamas which Yang had grabbed for her.

Yang hopped off her bed and pulled up a chair form a triangle; Weiss and Blake on their own beds and Yang sitting by the dresser in front of the window.

Clearing her throat, Yang started. "Today, I hit the weights room. I set three new personal bests, but I accidentally tore my right arm's muscles a bit on the bench press."

This had been their custom for the last week; train separately, then tell each other what they had accomplished, as well as any mistakes they had made.

Weiss continued, "I reached my limits for exercises with safety protocols, so I hacked the console and started doing exercises with custom protocols to push myself." Weiss left out that she had almost lost an arm to a glyph; she _had_ stopped it after all, so it hadn't been a completed mistake.

Blake hesitated before continuing, "I ran into four Nevermores." Yang and Weiss both stared at her in shock. She had downed _four_ Nevermores?

Seeing their faces, Blake hastily continued, "I only fought one though. I successfully killed it, but all the others had left, so I just came back here."

Silence enveloped the three of them. Blake was looking at the floor, Yang had turned and was looking out the window, and Weiss was staring at her own lap. Unbeknownst to Weiss, both she and Yang were thinking the same thing. Both were wondering if they could already kill a Nevermore on their own. None of them had run into one alone before now.

Silence enveloped the three, each wrapped in their own thoughts.

Little did they know, Team JNPR was eavesdropping, and had only become even more worried with this latest turn of events.

* * *

Ruby blinked in confusion. She was sitting on a wooden stool, in front of a crate with a chessboard on it. Looking at it, she saw the chess pieces were already randomly place over the board; the match had already started. It appeared her side, black, was currently losing.

Looking around her, she realized she was what seemed to be an infinite black plane. Outside of the small circle of light shining down on her and the chess set, she could see absolutely nothing. She also couldn't tell where the light was coming from.

Looking over the chess pieces, she saw there was another wooden stool on the other side of the crate. This one, though, seemed to be partially enveloped by the darkness which surrounded her. Looking closely, she realized it was formed in the shape of a person; the portions coated in shadows were roughly where a person would block out the light on a stool, two legs and a groin being clearly visible.

As she watched, the shadows seemed to stretch forward. Literally seeming to form a hand, it pushed a bishop a few places over.

Realizing she was expected to play, Ruby looked down at the board. She was startled to see that the move her opponent had made, sliding his bishop, had opened up an easy chance to take his queen without any consequence. Confidently moving her knight to take his queen, she removed his queen from the board.

She looked up at her opponent, losing vision of the board, and as she did so she felt a burning pain on her left hand. Looking down, she pulled up her hand from where it rested on her knee, and was horrified to see that one of her fingers had been removed from her hand.

Around the base of each of her fingers were silver rings. They were tightly attached to her skin, and if Ruby had to guess, the one on her pinky had literally contracted until if tore her finger off.

Looking up, she blinked, looking at the chess board in confusion. Wiping away her tears, she realized with horror that she hadn't seen incorrectly; the board had changed. She was now white, and had just lost her queen. Black had the upper hand in multiple ways; the knight was applying pressure to her left flank, her own bishop was positioned uselessly, and her queen was gone.

Again, the shadowy hand slowly moved itself across the board, gliding a rook forward from its starting position, taking one of Ruby's pawns. Seeing that it was in line with one of her own rooks now, and unprotected, Ruby hesitantly moved in for the capture. As she did so though, she felt the burning pain on her hand intensify.

She didn't want to look down, but she couldn't control her neck. She mechanically looked down, to find two fingers on her left hand gone, two fingers and two small silver balls lying on the floor. Looking up, the board had shifted against her again, so her previous move had only put her into the losing position now that they had flipped.

She wanted to leave, to run. But she couldn't make herself do so. Nor could she stop herself from making the moves she was given apparently free opportunity to do. She didn't even have control over her own body, her mind was screaming desperately for her to do anything but go along with the flow. The pain was only getting worse as every time she made the obvious move, she lost another finger. In order, she lost the pinky finger, then ring finger, middle finger, index finger, and thumb on her left hand. After her thumb was gone, the process spread to her right hand.

As she made the final move she would be able to, using her right thumb to hook onto a rook and move in to take down the enemy king, she wondered what would happen next.

As the king fell, she heard a quiet and scratchy, yet deep and resonant voice reverberate in her head.

Amius Crowell's voice said to her, "There is a lesson in all things, no matter how painful they are."

She felt her thumb's ring begin contracting, but didn't feel the finger fall. The shadowy figure across from her stood, its outline becoming defined by a soft purple glow. Its hand gliding towards her through the air as smoothly as it had across the chess board, it reached into her skin without any effort, and she felt its hand close on her heart. She had one heartbeat of time to feel terror before it was crushed, and she felt blood welling up her throat.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Please Follow/Fav if you liked, Review with your thoughts, and PM me any questions!**

**So, I had an interesting conversation with the author of "Blood Rose" about how Weiss treated Yang in chapter five, and thought it might interest any of you who wondered about whether that treatment was viable in any way, and also delves into my theories on glyphs a bit. Don't read if you aren't interested in anything but the story, but if you are interested… Enjoy!:**

**Rapey Lemons: "Ugh, cauterizing internal wounds isn't the best treatment option, it can cause Sepsis."**

**Me: "Well, she freezes Yang afterwards, and they open her up in the next chapter, where they could fight Sepsis if it were occurring."**

**RL: "If she can use all these micro glyphs, why not use them to hold the organs together? Or, if she's going to freeze them, why not do that first?"**

**Me: "First off, it's more about energy requirements, holding together organs would take too much energy. Second, the stasis was meant to be implied as entirely experimental, so the first treatment was emergency "stop her from dying right now" treatment, whereas the stasis is more long term and meant to keep her okay until she can be opened up and examined."**

**RL: "But in the show she could make like 100 platforms for Ruby to run up a cliff on to fight the Nevermore, how is that less energy expensive?"**

**Me: "Dust-wise it isn't, but I assume that precise placement and force have to be calculated by the glyph user, meaning holding together organs would actually be extremely difficult on the user, much more so than simply creating a long line of platforms."**

**RL: "Hmm. That makes sense, I suppose a row of platforms that don't have to be precise in size or force isn't very mentally taxing. How does your stasis work? As far as I've read, she hasn't been described as frozen or anything."**

**Me: "I'm pretty sure I describe her at some point as 'frozen without being frozen,' basically, the theory is her cells have all been stopped from moving, but aren't actually frozen or being damaged."**

**RL: "So it's closer to magic than cryo-preservation?"**

**Me: "Basically, yes."**


	13. Chapter 13

Ruby's eyes flew open and found a curtain of dull purple shrouding her gaze. Jerking into a sitting position, she felt her left leg explode with pain as she carelessly hit her ankle on the ground, jarring the destroyed bones. Clawing at her face, Ruby was desperate to remove the purple shroud, only to hear Crowell's voice.

"Behaving like a fool will not help you restore your vision."

Against her instincts, Ruby slowed her breathing and stopped clawing at her skin. She could feel blood trickling down her cheeks from where she had broken her own skin in her panicked attacks.

Her heart refused to stop pounding furiously, though. And her breathing was shaky, no matter how much she tried to control it. She had already realized it must have been a nightmare of some sort, since her fingers were safely on her hands and her previously crushed heart was very much working, as its fluttery beat reassured her.

But it felt like a shadow was on her now, grasping at her mind and soul, clawing its way into her to remind her of the fear she had felt. Worse, it was succeeding in its mission; Ruby still felt terribly afraid, unable to calm herself down.

After almost a minute had passed, Ruby was huddled with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her left arm _still_ hurt, even worse than before she had passed out, and her left leg hurt as badly as it would if it were on fire. No matter how tightly she closed her eyes, she couldn't close out the soft purple filling her vision.

"Open your eyes."

Ruby hesitated before obeying, opening her eyes and finding the purple unchanging, filling her vision like a perfectly smooth blanket.

"Good."

Ruby watched in wonder as the purple gradually crept away from the corners of her vision. When almost a quarter of her vision was back, the rest of the shroud abruptly disappeared. Blinking rapidly, Ruby saw what looked like a solid purple hand retreating rapidly from her face. Turning to track it, she saw as it retracted towards Crowell and, upon reaching the soft purple aura surrounding his body, disappeared.

Ruby shivered upon seeing Crowell. The initially creepy looking old man had successfully made her feel the worst pain she had felt in her life, and had followed up by making her feel more terror than she had previously thought possible.

Looking at him, Ruby saw that his scarred eye was now open, revealing that his second eye was not blind, but rather wasn't human looking at all.

The eye's iris was a sharp violet, not overly extraordinary, but its sclera was inhuman. Normal humans' sclera were white and contrasted their irises, but his resembled a beast's eye, his sclera the same color as his iris. There was a faint break where she could see the edge of his iris, but his entire eye was clearly violet.

Seeing her looking, he grinned and closed his eye, letting his aura recede into his body.

"Fun first day, eh? Think on it before I call for you again, Rose." With this cryptic message, Crowell turned and strode towards the door. As he left through it, Ruby heard him say something to Baurus and Ariel, who were still standing outside the door.

Entering, Ariel cursed upon seeing Ruby on the floor, and rushed over.

Ruby held up her hands, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Well… I'm not fine, my leg is broken, but it's not that bad."

Ariel looked at her in disbelief and took a moment to compose herself before curtly asking, "Where did all of this blood come from then?"

Looking down, Ruby discovered she was sitting in a small pool of blood, an enormous stain spread outwards from her heart, and her hands were coated in the liquid.

Most disturbing to her personally though was the sight of thin white lines on the base of her fingers, clearly marking where the silver rings had crushed them and cut them off.

The second most disturbing thing was that she realized she couldn't feel the blood at all, her skin seemingly ignoring the warm liquid coating it.

Shivering, she heard Baurus saying, "Should we take her to the med wing like this or call someone with a stretcher?"

Before Ariel could reply, Ruby spoke up. "I'm fine. I can walk. Let's go to my room."

Both of them turned to stare as she stood up. As she put weight on her shattered left leg, she focused all of her aura on making it look stable to them. On the surface, her leg looked like it had been badly broken, nothing more. Underneath, she could feel that her bones were thoroughly destroyed, each having at least forty breaks. Channeling her aura, she managed to hold the pieces into a shape resembling the original bones and keep her muscles from trembling.

They looked doubtful, and Ariel narrowed her eyes at the sight of aura coating Ruby's leg but didn't mention it. Instead, she nodded and gestured for Ruby to follow her. Baurus walked behind her this time, perhaps worried that she would fall.

They exited the door, but to Ruby's surprise they didn't go to the staircase. Instead, they turned away and went further down the hall. After a brief walk, they reached another non-descript wooden door, this one set in the left wall. Shaking a key out of her key-ring, Ariel unlocked the door and gestured inside. Ruby entered, Ariel following, and Baurus stayed outside.

Ruby looked around the space in wonder. This was a room for _prisoners?_

As if reading her mind, Ariel said, "This is a residence normally reserved for high-ranking guests. For your… training, you are being given it in order to ensure you have no complaints or problems with your housing, as well as to ensure that you don't need to move about the facility."

Ruby could see why the room would limit her reasons to leave, because it had every amenity she could possibly request. It was as large as the training room but covered by a soft red carpet and well lit. It seemed to be roughly divided into four areas.

One area, immediately to the left of the door, had a variety of exercise equipment. It had free hand weights ranging from twenty kilograms to five hundred kilograms and several barbells with low lying standard workout benches. Additionally, it also had a treadmill, a bike machine, and several weight machines for lower body training, such as a leg press and a pair of both thigh and quadriceps training machines.

To the right of the door was what appeared to be a full fledged library, stuffed into a space far too small. It had a single large wraparound desk with a comfy looking spinning chair in it, and the rest of that quarter of the room was dedicated to shelves of books. There were probably over a thousand books shoved into the comparatively small area. There was also one acquiescence to modern research; set into the right end of the wraparound desk was a single terminal that looked like it was probably far more advanced than was needed for simple research on the web.

In the back right, situated next to the library, was what seemed to be a large kitchen, although it seemed more suited to cooking for a restaurant than a single person. It had five fridges throughout, a dozen sinks, countless cabinets, and an equally abundant amount of appliances. The only appliances Ruby recognized readily were three ovens, six coffee makers, eight microwaves, and four different four-burner grills.

In the back left was what appeared to be an actual _room_, a plush looking queen-sized bed with a nightstand on its left and a large wooden chest on the end in the center of the space. There were two wardrobes, one dresser, and a door set into the far wall which Ruby assumed led to the bathroom.

All in all, it provided everything she could ask for. Except for a way to treat her leg. She had made a strong showing so far, and wanted to keep it up, but she knew there was no way they were going to leave her alone in this room long enough for her to heal it with just her aura. Not to mention the fact that, although she was managing to deal with it for now, she certainly wouldn't be able to live with this level of pain for the days it would take to heal her bones.

Clearing her throat, Ruby spoke. "This is a fantastic room and all, but could we swing by the medical wing? I need something checked."

Ariel looked at her with a surprisingly cold gaze. "This room was only given to you to _prevent_ your movement throughout the facility. If you need medical treatment, we will bring someone here. Are you sure you need medical treatment?"

Ruby nodded. Ariel walked to the door, opened it a moment, and said to Baurus, "Fetch a doctor, preferably one specializing in…" Ariel looked back to Ruby expectantly.

"Anyone with general expertise is fine." Ruby supplied this hastily, thinking to herself that all she absolutely needed was a splint and pain killers. A cast would be strongly preferable to a splint but more difficult to hide, and the splint would serve the purpose of keeping things relatively aligned while her aura worked. The painkillers were a must, though. Anything else the doctor offered would be a bonus.

Ariel relayed her statement to Baurus before closing the door again. She then sat down in a plain wooden chair next to the door, pulled out a small folder, flipped it open, and began doing what looked to be paperwork.

Seeing that Ariel wasn't interested in talking, Ruby made her way to the bedroom area on her own. This proved to be a challenge on its own, owing to the immense room size and her own busted leg. Flopping down on her bed, Ruby let out a sigh of relief to be off her left leg. It still hurt horribly, but now she didn't have to focus as much aura on keeping it together.

Sitting up, Ruby began looking herself over, and realized with a start that she still hadn't checked what they had burned onto her arm. Pulling at her skin to get a good look at the burn, she saw that there was a glyph seared onto her arm. For the first time, she regretted never paying attention in class; she had no idea what the glyph might do, or if it even did _anything_ when it was just a pattern without dust. Assuming it did nothing seemed too hopeful; why would they even put it there if it did nothing? Still, she couldn't think of anything it could do.

Setting the glyph aside in her mind, she tenderly lifted her left leg onto the edge of the bed and began gently pressing down on various points on her calf. Her intense aura focus on it seemed to be holding the bones firmly in place, but the aura hadn't made any progress in actually healing the breaks.

She wanted to make her stay as easy as possible, which meant that she needed to appear herself as stronger than they thought she was, both in character and in combat ability. She wasn't sure how she was meant to trick that inhuman old man who called himself Crowell, but for now she could minimize the amount of care she was seen receiving.

In the midst of Ruby's musing, she heard a knock on the door on the other side of the room. Ariel stood and opened the door. A young woman in a lab coat stepped in, and Ariel closed the door behind her. The two women exchanged a few words Ruby couldn't hear, and the woman in the lab coat began walking her way as Ariel sat back down in her chair by the door.

As she drew closer, Ruby saw that the woman was nearly as much a mess as Ruby herself was. Her lab coat covered her messy appearance at a distance, but up close you could tell her white dress shirt was not properly tucked into her brown dress pants, which stopped at an awkward length a dozen centimeters from her ankles: too short to look full length and too long to look as if they purposefully stopped short.

She had long brown hair tumbling down the back of her head in a messy ponytail, with stray strands sticking out from the sides and top of her head. Her eyes were a deep brown and had noticeable bags underneath them. Her skin looked unhealthy; a sallow tone pervaded her skin which otherwise would likely have looked ghost white. She probably hadn't seen sunlight in a couple of years, if Ruby had to guess.

The woman stopped a couple of meters away and looked at Ruby skeptically.

"Well? What do you need?" Her voice was fairly normal sounding and had a warmer tone than anyone else who had spoken to Ruby so far, even Baurus

"My leg is pretty badly broken," Ruby explained, gesturing at her leg.

The woman sat down near the foot of the bed and began lightly touching Ruby's calf. As she did so, a look of concentration came over her face, and light green aura formed over her fingertips. Ruby expected to feel pain where the woman tapped her fingers, but instead anywhere the woman's fingers brushed seemed to feel better almost immediately.

After a minute, she stood back up. "If you want, we can probably fix this tonight. Doing so would probably mean a sleepless night for you though."

Ruby's mouth dropped open, dumbfounded. "How can we fix it that quickly? Also… Uh, what time is it? I don't even know."

The woman chuckled. "It's currently a quarter past nine PM. As for how we heal your leg, that would be thanks to one of my own inventions. It's an aura manipulator, and basically it's a machine that makes your aura heal you more effectively. So, if you keep up a constant supply of aura, it will heal in a matter of hours. That said, it's a rather uncomfortable process, so most people can't sleep during it."

Ruby absorbed this information before replying. "That sounds like the best option, then. I don't even know how long I was asleep for while they brought me here. But I'm not tired now, so I should be fine staying awake for a few hours."

The woman nodded before saying, "Wait here a moment."

She walked briskly back over to Ariel and spoke to her shortly before returning to Ruby.

"Sorry, but it looks like we're going to have to blindfold you again for this trip. Do you want help walking? Or are you determined to act tough?"

Ruby realized that the woman definitely understood how badly broken her leg was but shook her head. "I'll be fine walking."

"You sure? The treatment won't work if you use up all your aura putting up a strong front."

"I'm sure."

"Alright then, get up. It's not a long walk, but you should still know it'll take a few minutes."

The woman turned and walked towards the door again. Ruby momentarily focused her aura into her leg and mentally prepared herself for the pain before following.

Upon reaching the door, Ariel pulled a blindfold out from her back pocket. As the cloth was wrapped tightly around her head, blocking out her vision entirely, Ruby wondered how many blindfolds the head of security carried around.

"Let's go." Ruby heard the door swing open, and Ariel put her hand on Ruby's back to guide her. They began the march to the med-wing.

* * *

Weiss lay back on her bed, staring at the bottom of the bunk bed above her. For the thousandth time in the last week, she cursed herself for being weak.

Someone knocked on the door loudly, startling all three of the girls. Yang jumped up and went to get the door.

Pulling the door wide open, Weiss saw the entirety of Team JNPR standing in the hallway and groaned internally. She guessed this would probably be a continuation from when Ren had talked to her yesterday.

"Can we come in for a bit?"

Yang hesitated before acquiescing, standing aside for Jaune and his team as they filed in. Blake got up and pulled a couple of spare chairs from the closet, making enough seating for all of Team JNPR to sit down.

"So," Yang jumped back onto her bed, "what are you all here for on this fine night?"

None of Team JNPR spoke, all looking at Jaune expectantly, who was in turn looking at Pyrrha. Pyrrha sighed and spoke.

"We want to talk to you guys about your training."

"This again? We've already been over it, you know." Weiss sounded haughty to herself, but that was fine. She would prefer to drive away the other team at the moment. They were good friends, but they were too nosy and concerned for their own good.

Pyrrha continued without paying attention to Weiss. "We think you guys need to slow down. We want to make sure you do, and if you don't we're prepared to tell the professors about what you're doing for your own good."

The room was deathly quiet. The three remaining members of Team RWBY had fixed deadly glares on Pyrrha, who seemed to be impervious to their gazes. Jaune, however, was fidgeting uncomfortably, while Ren sat calmly, hands on his knees and back straight. Nora was chewing on her bottom lip a little, eyes darting around between everyone in the room, looking as if she wanted to say something but couldn't.

"Perhaps… that may be a good idea."

Yang jumped out of her bed to stare at Blake now, and the faunus retreated across her bed away from Yang.

"How could that possibly be alright, Blake?"

"Look, I understand-"

"NO! CLEARLY YOU DON'T!" Flames were starting to flicker around Yang, and even Pyrrha looked perturbed by this outburst. Jaune was cowering in his chair, while Ren and Nora continued to watch.

Pyrrha stepped forward and laid her hand on Yang's shoulder. "Maybe you should let her speak?"

Yang looked at Pyrrha furiously but stepped away from Blake's bed and turned back to look at her partner expectantly. Weiss breathed an inner sigh of relief that the hotheaded blonde hadn't started a fight, especially in the dorm room.

"All I'm saying is that at this rate we're going to burn out way before a couple of months have passed. It might be better to slow down and make sure we don't end up permanently hurting ourselves." Blake left an unspoken meaning Yang and Weiss both heard: before they crippled themselves or more likely killed themselves.

Yang turned back to Pyrrha. "Get out. We need to talk as a team. And if I catch you eavesdropping, so help me, there will be hell to pay."

Team JNPR filed out, with only Pyrrha looking frustrated at their removal. Jaune seemed relieved, Nora seemed bothered by what had happened, and Ren seemed mostly unaffected, just as he was by anything.

Yang watched out the door until she had confirmed the other team had all retreated into their own dorm room, then closed the door.

"So. Weiss?" Yang turned to Weiss expectantly, who was a bit taken aback.

"What?"

"Well, what's your opinion on cutting back?"

Weiss hesitated, thinking on it. She still remembered the blinding speed of the man who had taken Ruby, and how easily she and Blake had been dealt with. One palm strike each, and they had been beaten.

She also remembered Blake staggering in, covered in blood. She remembered her own fight a few days ago with a Death-Stalker, which had nearly killed her. She had ended up running, out of dust, before managing to finish the monster, despite the fact that it had been on the verge of death itself.

Next, she thought of the way Yang always looked when she returned from the forest, always bruised, never bleeding, and always determined-looking. Would it even be fair to take away the blonde girl's goal because of her own trepidation? Weiss wasn't sure.

Finally, she thought of their training methods. Going into the forest without permission was forbidden, but they had been doing so. Sheer recklessness in the training rooms was also against the rules, though it was often difficult for anyone who caught them to judge. Certainly, though, their recent actions had been reckless, and her personal hacking of the console would probably be considered a true crime on top of merely breaking school rules.

Weiss looked up from her lap, realizing with a start that she had been quiet for at least a minute, if not more.

Slowly, she voiced her thoughts. "I think… that it's important we keep pushing ourselves. But… I also think it's important that we start being more careful in the future."

Yang seemed to deflate upon hearing Weiss speak, jumping into her bed without another word.

They all slept restlessly that night, troubled by their own thoughts.


	14. Chapter 14

"Okay, this is good." Ruby heard a door swing closed behind them as the blindfold covering her eyes was untied.

Blinking as it fell away, Ruby found herself in a relatively small room that was dominated by… some strange piece of furniture. Was this the aura manipulator? Whatever it was, it wasn't much to look at.

The object in the center of the room was little more than a reclining chair. Made out of steel, it had straps all over it; it had one strap per limb, three along the torso, and finally one across the neck. In addition, it had countless small holes throughout it, which appeared to be connected to tubes. The tubes ran back to several large solid steel canisters which presumably held some sort of medicine.

"Not much to look at, I know, but it works. Climb in." The woman, who had still not named herself, gestured towards the intimidating chair.

Ariel gave her a little push, and Ruby reluctantly climbed into the uncomfortable seat. Leaning back, she tried to sit still as Ariel, Baurus, and the woman went about the process of securely fastening all the straps. It took the three of them only a moment to finish, and then Ariel and Baurus went to stand by the door.

The female doctor disappeared from Ruby's vision as she went behind the seat to stand by the canisters.

"From here on out, you follow my instructions to the letter. I'm controlling this with my own aura, so if you imbalance me or disrupt the process there will be disastrous results for both of us. Understood?"

Ruby couldn't nod without making the strap on her neck dig in painfully, so she simply said, "Yes ma'am." The strap seemed to hum with the vibrations of her vocal cords.

"Good. Stop focusing aura in your leg and focus on balancing it as evenly as possible throughout your body as you can." Ruby complied, forcibly controlling her aura patterns as best she could. She found it much more difficult to balance her aura than concentrate it, as it required a different kind of focus.

Concentrating aura in one area of her body simply required focusing on that area. If she needed to focus aura in an arm to punch, she simply dedicated her entire mind to thinking about that arm and forced herself to imagine the arm surging with power. To evenly balance aura was more difficult for Ruby, because it required taking in her whole being and not paying attention to any one area. In essence it was focusing on the whole while ignoring details.

Still, Ruby tried. As she did so, the doctor hummed thoughtfully. After a few minutes, the doctor spoke. Good enough. Your control isn't very steady, but I can work with it. Keep that going unless I say otherwise."

Ruby didn't bother replying, instead continuing to focus on herself. A few moments after the doctor stopped talking something strange happened though, and it threatened to break her concentration. She could feel something invading her from the chair; it was focused on her broken left leg but spread throughout her body. She couldn't _physically_ feel anything, but her aura could feel whatever it was forcing its way in.

She tried desperately to steady her aura as it fluctuated violently in reaction to the foreign substance, attempting to repel the foreign energy. She was failing, though, as her aura gradually concentrated in her left leg where the opposing energy was strongest.

She heard the doctor curse from behind her, and the energy faded after a moment. Ruby sagged back into her chair as she realized with a start of surprise that her entire body had become tense, straining against the straps without her noticing. She let her aura drop, mentally exhausted from her brief exercise in willpower.

The doctor's face appeared frighteningly close to Ruby's own, the woman's pale, sickly skin a mere dozen centimeters away. Her dark brown eyes were piercing Ruby's own silver eyes, but Ruby couldn't look away.

"What did I _just_ say? To keep your aura steady, wasn't it? But you failed as soon as we started. _Honestly,_ I was told you would be more competent than this." The woman moved back while making a _tsk_ noise, looking Ruby over closely.

"You look like you're fine. Let me ask you something, have you _ever_ done concentration exercises?"

"Not… Not in this. I've never needed to focus on balancing my aura before."

The woman shook her head, her face set into an unhappy expression. "Crowell is going to turn you into dog food in a week if that's true. You'll never survive."

They fell silent, the woman silently staring Ruby over. Eventually, she said, "Well, shall we try again? We don't have any other choice if you want to be able to move around tomorrow."

Ruby simple nodded, feeling ashamed of her inability to control herself. The woman moved out of her line of sight once again, and Ruby focused on trying to balance her aura for the second time.

"Are you sure this will be fine? We can't risk hurting her _more_." Ruby heard Baurus voicing his concerns from where he stood by the door.

The doctor replied in an annoyed tone, "_Well,_ IF she can get her aura as stable as it was before, maybe… But right now she's too busy _listening to things that don't matter to concentrate_." The woman's voice took on a venom Ruby hadn't heard before, so she hastily redoubled her focus on her aura and tried to tune out the voices talking around her.

As she concentrated, a peculiar feeling came over her. She closed her eyes to cut off visual stimulus and felt energy flooding into her. But the energy didn't make her jittery or fill her with random thoughts. Instead, it was as if it was all bottled up and pushing at one objective; all the energy was concentrated on what she was concentrated on — steadying her own aura.

As the energy filled her, she quickly lost track of the voices. Had they stopped? Or was she deaf? These brief wonderings flitted over the top of her mind, too inconsequential to disrupt her focus. She felt her aura form a perfect coating all over her body as it became perfectly distributed and regulated.

Again, energy began pushing up at her from underneath — just like last time. This time, however, Ruby simply ignored it. She continued to hold onto her aura with an iron grip, keeping it flawlessly spread throughout herself.

Eventually, the foreign energy faded away, but Ruby didn't mind that it was gone. Then, one thought pierced her mind.

Something other than herself spoke in her mind in a deep voice, saying, _"You don't need to hold your aura anymore."_

Ruby felt herself go limp as the energy left her in a rush. As though floodgates holding then energy in her had been opened it poured out of her, leaving Ruby feeling drained and exhausted.

As her aura began to fizzle and dissipate, her hearing returned, and she could hear the doctor speaking alarmingly close to her.

Opening her eyes Ruby found the doctor's face directly next to her own. Upon seeing that Ruby was back to her senses the woman stopped talking and simply grinned at her.

"You did well, really well. Tell me, how long do you think it's been since we started?"

Ruby felt surprised by the question, as it seemed an odd question to immediately ask someone who had no reason to have lost track of time.

"It's only been a few minutes, hasn't it?"

The woman leaned back and laughed, tossing her head back. "It's been a few _hours_ actually, so you'd best get back to your room and rest."

The woman stood to the side and gestured at Ariel and Baurus. "You two can feel free to unstrap her whenever."

"Wait, has it _really_ been hours? There's no way!" Ruby looked at them frantically, hoping desperately that the doctor was joking.

Baurus looked at her quizzically as he began undoing the strap on her neck. "There's no doubt that it's been hours. We had to stand there the whole time with nothing to do but watch the color show. It was mind-numbing."

Ariel grunted in agreement and the pair worked in silence for a few moments, releasing Ruby from her restraints. Ruby was still staring between all three of them in disbelief.

"You should see the look on your face, Ruby, it's actually funny." The woman chuckled before adding wistfully, "Wish it could have felt that short to me. If you don't believe me, check your own leg."

With this statement Ruby noticed that what had felt different since waking up wasn't because of a stimulus, but the lack of one. Her leg was no longer in any pain, and the burn on her arm also felt healed. As soon as the straps around her torso were removed, she tried to get a look at the burn, pulling on her arm and twisting her neck. Where the glyph had been there was now a smooth patch of skin, making Ruby's mouth drop open in an O.

The woman chuckled again before saying, "Oh well, I'm heading back. See you around, Ariel, Baurus." She made for the door, stretching her hands over her head as she did so.

"Wait."

The woman turned around to look at Ruby questioningly.

"What?"

"Can you tell me your name? You know mine, so I want to know yours."

"I don't really have an obligation to tell you, but… Why not. The name's Karen. Not to be rude, but I hope we don't meet again too soon… for your sake." With this she exited the room, the sound of the door clicking shut echoing in the outside hallway.

* * *

Ruby fell on her back into her bed feeling completely exhausted. The whole walk back to her room she had been able to feel her limbs gradually growing heavier, and her limbs practically felt like lead by the time she finally got to collapse.

"You have roughly six hours to rest, much more than we originally thought you would. I'll be leaving, but there _will _be guards outside, so don't try anything stupid like escaping."

Ruby nodded without looking at Ariel. After a moment, she heard the guard captain leave the room.

Ruby breathed a sigh of relief. But, despite her fatigue, she didn't want to fall asleep quite yet. Sniffing her armpit she made a face at the smell. She stank of sweat, which was not an odor she cared for.

She wearily stood up and made her way to the end of the bed, where she opened the large chest at the foot of the bed. To her relief, the contents were as she had suspected; the chest contained several changes of clean clothing.

It seemed to have been stocked without any care for the current inhabitant but rather was meant to suit whomsoever needed new clothes. It had changes of underwear for both genders as well as a variety of garments. There were shorts, jeans, sweat pants, t-shirts, tank-tops, long-sleeved shirts, and even a couple of hoodies.

_Geh, what a selection._ Glancing at the area filled with fitness equipment, Ruby mused that they were probably meant to ensure any guest could exercise in comfortable clothes of their choice. Selecting properly fitted underwear, a t-shirt, and sweatpants, Ruby carried her new clothes over to the door in the wall near the bed.

Opening the door, Ruby saw she had been correct yet again, and it was indeed a bathroom. It was rather nice, in fact. It was spacious, had tile flooring, granite countertops with a sizable sink set in, several dark cedar cabinets, and a gleaming porcelain toilet and shower. The entire room was spotless, clearly having been cleaned to perfection.

She only had to search through a few cabinets before finding a stack of fluffy white towels along with some soap and shampoo. Her limbs still tired, she slowly went about the process of hanging a towel up on the rack by the shower and placing the soap in reach of the shower before starting the water, which was ice cold as it sputtered out of the shower head.

Giving the water time to warm up she stripped before stepping into the stream of water. Too tired to enjoy the now warm water, she cleaned herself as quickly as possible before stepping back out and drying herself off.

Dressing herself in the clean clothes she had brought in, she looked dubiously at the dirty clothes she had discarded, wondering what to do with them. After a moment she decided to just ask Ariel when she woke back up, and with that she opened the door back to her room.

"Hello, Rose."

Ruby's mouth fell open at the sight of Amius Crowell, who was casually leaning on one of the bed posts.

"You took quite a while." He made this remark in an offhand tone, but his single open eye was staring at her intently.

Ruby shivered slightly. _He's the creepiest old man I've ever met._

Hoping to come off equally nonchalant, Ruby spoke while moving to her bed. "It's not easy to shower quickly when you're as tired as I am." She sat down on her bed and turned to look at him. "So? What do you want?"

"Just wanted to see how you were doing with your injury. I take it our dear local healer took care of you? I can't imagine _you_ healing it on your own."

Ruby bristled a bit from his scathing tone, replying, "What makes you say that?"

Crowell stood and began walking towards the bathroom door without replying. He reached out and grasped its handle, but then he paused.

"You couldn't have healed that on your own because your aura control is weak, and _you_ are weak, Rose. Don't worry, though, we'll work on that."

With those words he opened the door to the bathroom and entered it.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Ruby jumped off her bed and hurried over to the door, wrenching it open.

Looking around, she was confused to find the bathroom completely empty. As she began to turn around, she heard the door on the far side of the room slam shut. By the time she could see the door, though, it gave no sign that it had been disturbed. Both the bathroom and the main room were empty, even though she hadn't seen Crowell leave.

Shaking her head in bewilderment, Ruby made her way back to the bed again. Pulling back the covers, she settled in to sleep, her mind easily slipping away in its eagerness to rest.

* * *

For the second time in a period of 24 hours, Ruby was awoken by the feeling of burning on her left arm. Her eyes flew open and she twisted her head to get a clear look at the glyph on her arm and saw it was glowing softly. Tenderly touching it, Ruby felt something like crystals under her skin.

Feeling panic rising up in her throat, Ruby gritted her teeth, put aura into her right hand, and tried to peel the skin off.

_Whatever this is, whatever it does, it's not good._

With this thought she began to tear into her own skin. As her fingers touched the crystals, however, an unbelievable amount of pain surged throughout her entire body, making her go rigid and arch her back as she shrieked in pain.

The door burst open, and she heard the sound of multiple boots rushing into the room. As the pain subsided she fell back, her body limp and exhausted.

"You shouldn't have done that." A deep male voice spoke, and as Ruby sluggishly turned her head to look at the figure standing next to the bed something slammed into her face. Her jaw shattered instantly, and she lost consciousness. Again.

* * *

**Author's Note: Turns out I am not dead. More writing is to come in the future!**


End file.
